Actual and Symbolic Barriers in Robert Frosts Mending Wall Essay

true(a) and Symbolic Barriers in Robert Frosts Mending Wall The appearance of barriers, both real and figurative, is significant to the narrative of Robert Frosts Mending Wall. The story in this piece revolves somewhat a groyne separating cardinal men, their yards, and their lives. The seawall is not only a physical boundary it also symbolizes the barriers mingled with the two in some other aspects of their lives.The most noticeable barrier in this work is obviously the wall dividing the yard. The reason for a wall between the trees is unknown to the fabricator and the reader. The speaker questions the engage for the fence when he says, Before I built a wall Id ask to know/ What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense. These feelings are expressed also in lines 23 through 26. The wall is located between the neighbors pine grove and the speakers apple orchard. Is there a point in dividing these trees? Even though the narrator does no t know the purpose of the wall, he is always the one trustworthy for making sure it is mended every year. More than likely he unconsciously feels a need for the fence too. Perhaps it is a need for his loneliness or maybe it is a need to have a connectedness with the outside world. In the lines Where they have not left one sway on a stone, / But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, the wall represents the barriers people put up so that their vulnerabilities and secrets can remain hidden. erstwhile this wall is broken there is a need to mend it in order to keep others from seeing what is on the opposite side of the wall. there are other instances of the wall representing the need for separation between individualised and private aspects of lives. In lines 16 though 20, ... ...need to keep the wall up in order to protect themselves from outsiders. At the same time though, the need for the ritual of mending the fence is beyond their control. The narrator states, Someth ing there is that doesnt have it away a wall...And makes gaps even two can hug drug abreast. (Lines 1-4) The choice to pass through the fence is available, and so is the choice to mend the wall apiece year. Both know that the fence will fall again and the nigh spring they will be reunited. As long as the veridical wall exists there will be contact between the two men. However as long as the figurative barriers remain, the distance between them is further than any fence could separate them. Work CitedRobert Frost. Mending Wall. make Literature Matter An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. New York Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. p106-107.