Mending Wall

The speaker of Robert Frost's poem entitled "Mending Wall" does not see any need for a wall between his property and that of his neighbor; he also finds walls unnatural. In the opening line, the...

The fact that the speaker does not specify what, precisely, is the "Something" that "sends the frozen-ground-swell" under the fence could mean that the word something refers to nature, as another...

We keep the wall between us as we go. The central metaphor in this poem is the wall itself. It comes to represent the divisions between people, things that keep them apart. The speaker notes that...

A critical appreciation of a poem is a reading that generally considers a poem's meaning, its rhythm and rhyme scheme, its tone, its use of language, and so on. You can discuss all of these...

I think the narrator is referring, in part, to the darkness of the past, the darkness of maintaining a tradition that no longer seems relevant. The neighbor who insists on keeping the wall claims...

“Mending Wall” begins with statements about walls, presented in third person. The perspective switches in Line 6 to a first-person speaker who explains their habit of coordinating wall repairs with...

The lines “something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and “good fences make good neighbors” are repeated. Repetition is used in poems to add emphasis and highlight significant themes. In this...

Frost uses anaphora in this poem. In this literary device, the first word or words of a line are repeated in consecutive lines. Frost does this twice, in both cases repeating the word "and": And...

A simile is a comparison that uses the words 'like' or 'as.' As other answers have noted, there is but one simile in this poem: I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each...

In the poem "Mending Wall," the term "old-stone savaged armed" is used to describe the neighbor. The speaker refers to the neighbor as an "old-stone savage armed" because he is old fashioned. He...

"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost is a poem in which Frost contemplates why he and his friendly neighbor have a wall between their two properties. He isn't enemies with his neighbor, they don't live...

Perhaps the greatest irony in the poem "Mending Wall" is that the speaker continues to help rebuild the wall even as he realizes he disagrees with its presence. As the poem progresses, the speaker...

"Mending Wall" is one of Robert Frost's most famous poems. When you are asked about the form of something, you need to start with the very basics. At root, the form is "poetry." Delving more...

The erosion of the fence and the apple trees are personified. Personification is the description of something innate or not human as if it were a person. For example, there is some phantom force...

The speaker of this poem is a man who questions the importance of the walls we put up- both physical and emotional. He starts the poem with the contemplation, “Something there is that doesn’t love...

The speaker clearly refers to forces of nature in the second line of the poem as being responsible for the wall's deterioration. He mentions that the ground becomes frozen and this causes cracks in...

The speaker doesn't like the wall. He begins the poem by stating, Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,And spills the upper boulders in the...

We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side....

Here is the line in context: He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." "He" refers to the...

In "The Mending Wall," the speaker is a practical man who sees himself as more modern, free thinking, and rational than his traditional neighbor. The speaker is irritated about having to the repair...

According to the poet, it seems that hunters come by the wall during the winter and remove stones in order to flush rabbits out of their hiding places within the wall. By tearing down sections of...

The speaker of the poem certainly thinks that repairing the wall is a complete waste of time. The two men go through the same tedious ritual every year without any compelling reason. The speaker's...

Elves are small, often mischievous supernatural creatures from folklore that are known to cause damage. They often become a scapegoat when things go wrong. In "Mending Wall," the elves are a...

In the first 5 lines of the poem "The Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, Frost indicated that the earth doesn't like a wall, because the wall keeps crumbling on her, and doesn't stay intact. It is...

The speaker in the poem is a thoughtful man, hard-working, practical, and discerning. As he works with his neighbour to repair the wall dividing their property, he questions the necessity of even...

One of the great things about poetry is that it is intended to evoke a response from the reader, but each reader need not have an identical response. Thus, when discussing what something in a poem...

The main theme of the poem is community. The narrator and the neighbor don't appear to have much in common and do not socialize with one another. As one first reads the poem, the wall seems an...

The two characters are the speaker and the neighbor. The speaker is curious and inquisitive, and the neighbor believes that keeping a fence between them is the best way to maintain good relations....

In "Mending Wall," the speaker describes participating in the annual spring ritual of joining his neighbor to repair the stone wall that runs between their properties. The speaker embodies modern...

The speaker of the poem thinks that the wall is somewhat unnatural, and he believes that there is "Something... that doesn't love a wall." Nature, for example, makes the frozen ground swell up...

In Mending Wall the speaker, an apple farmer and his neighbor "set the wall between us once again" after it has inevitably been broken down by natural events after the " frozen-ground-swell" or...

Frost's poem "Mending Wall" is a contemplative journey through Frost's thoughts as he ponders what purpose the stone wall between him and his neighbor really serves. Personally, he doesn't really...

The speaker views his neighbor as being a man who lives according to tradition without thinking. Each spring, his neighbor insists that he and the speaker restore the breaks in the stone wall that...

In Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” the speaker describes how he has often repaired the stone wall separating his farm from his neighbor’s farm. He notes that the wall needs to be repaired...

Assonance, consonance and alliteration are all literary devices based upon sound, and used most often in poetry—they are what gives poetry a "musical, lilting" feel. All of these devices are based...

The narrator and his neighbor have a disagreement about the importance of mending the wall between their properties. The narrator thinks that mending the wall every year is silly. They have no...

The speaker seems to feel that, because the gaps keep forming, there is some element in the world "that doesn't love a wall." Nature "sends the frozen-ground-swell under it" so that the rocks on...

This line contains some figurative language and should not be read literally. The speaker and his neighbor are not witches that cast an actual magic spell on the stones to make them stay in fence...

As another educator has mentioned, Frost employs a few tones as he progresses through this poem. However, if I had to label the entire message of the poem with a singular tone, I'd go with...

There are positive and negative aspects to the wall and this adds to the complicated notion of the relationship between the two neighbors. Every spring, the two neighbors meet in order to repair...

Parallel structure, or parallelism, is a literary technique in which two or more phrases or sentences in a short story or a poem, for example, repeat the same grammatical structure, but with one or...

The wall is a literal, physical wall. But it also is a metaphor for the emotional wall between the speaker and his neighbor. The speaker claims that something doesn't love the wall. The spring thaw...

The wall being mended in Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" is made of stones and runs along the boundary between the properties of the speaker and his neighbor. The speaker, with lighthearted...

As another reviewer said, you could look at "mending" either as an action being performed by the speaker and the neighbor or as modifying the type of wall they are working on together. The title is...

This poem presents two view of a wall between two orchards. I lived in New England, and these walls are somtimes low walls that were originally intended to keep cows in their pasture (doesn't take...

When the narrator says, "He is all pine and I am apple orchard," he does not actually mean that his neighbor is made of pine and the speaker is made of apple orchard. He means that his neighbor's...