Preview

Poem Analysis: Stone Dividever

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
831 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Poem Analysis: Stone Dividever
The poem can be viewed as a sensational verse or emotional monolog. Each spring, the speaker in the lyric, probably the writer himself and his neighbor, an old New England rancher stroll along the stone divider between their individual properties to survey and repair the harm done to the divider consistently, apparently by cruel climate and seekers.

Every rancher gets the stones that have tumbled to his side and places them back on the divider yet being of uneven shapes and sizes, they don't stay in their place and tumble off more than once. To such an extent, that the entire practice of attempting to make the rocks adjust appears to be useless and “just another kind of outdoor game,/One on a side.”

The speaker is of the view that the reason the divider has “gaps even two can pass abreast” is that there is a secretive compel at work that essentially “doesn’t love a wall.” As opposed to the speaker who is youthful, exuberant, enthusiastic and with an adaptable form of mind who feels that a limit line between the two neighbors is unneeded and pointless, his neighbor appears to have a profound situated, daze confidence in the estimation of dividers and wall. He couldn't care less to clarify his conviction and rather, stonily affirms his dad's words, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The more
…show more content…
The speaker says of his neighbor, “He moves in darkness as it seems to me,/Not of woods only and the shade of trees.....” Be that as it may, the speaker's perspectives are additionally primitive in some regard since he is by all accounts in sensitivity for some essential soul in nature that denies all dividers, divisions, and limits. It is suggested that there is some heavenly power at work in Nature –“......Something there is that doesn’t love a wall/That wants it down. I could say ‘Elves’ to him,/But it’s not elves

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The irony in “The Interlopers” helps show that nature always has the most power. Today, we can relate to Ulrich and Georg in that while people may be occupied with their own plans, feuds, dreams, nature is always there, and nature is strong. We need to realize that our cities, houses, and roads are the interlopers…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The judge’s gavel hit the sound block and just like that I had been sold to the highest bidder, or at least it seemed that way. My Aunt was awarded custody of me and I felt abandoned by my mother. As a result of this trauma, I erected imaginary boundaries to prevent that emotional pain and hide that shame from others. I use this boundary as a protection from people, just as the neighbor in “Mending Wall,” emotionally protects himself. Poems by Robert Frost: A Boy’s Will and North of Boston, is a collection of Robert Frost’s poems which he offers both a surface and a deep meaning for readers to infer. In Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” he states a literal wall damaged by others and nature is being repaired by two neighbors; however, through profound analysis the wall is a symbol in which the neighbor established as a psychological barriers to protect his emotional scars.…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This is reflected in Robert Frost’s poem ‘Mending Wall’ where the persona ultimately accepts his discovery of the inevitability and futility of barriers that separate individuals and, by association, humanity. This is exemplified through the strong visual imagery of, “two can pass abreast” to refer to the fact that the hole in the wall can allow these neighbours who have differing perspectives, to come together and pass through the wall, side-by-side. The indirect link to unity by not mending the “wall” is important as the personas idea is challenged by the nature. This is reflective of the responder’s context as it challenges the widely held assumptions about human experience and the wider world. The idea is further stated intellectually in the poem where the, “gaps I mean” refers to the “walls”. The personal pronoun and the metaphor accentuate the “gap” in relationship between neighbours. It is important to note that the walls that bring the two people together and apart are not necessarily bad things as it allows space for privacy for self-reflection and human solitude. This allows the persona to lead to renewed perceptions and the values upheld by the neighbour. This notion is further strengthened in the last line of the poem where the repetition of the adage, “Good fences make good neighbours” exemplifies that the ‘neighbour’…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To paraphrase this poem, it is about two neighbors who annually meet to fix the wall that divides them. One neighbor thinks that the wall is unnecessary, especially because they do not have anything that needs to be contained like animals. However, the other neighbor believes the wall should remain, and keeps repeating the phrase, “Good fences make good neighbors.”…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After differences have been overcome, it is necessary to use those aberrations to help solve problems and gain mutual benefit. The narrator ponders the notion of cooperating with the neighbor to take down the wall, but he is discouraged from that because of his neighbor's persistence in the quote: "Good fences make good neighbors" (line twenty-seven). While the narrator does cooperate with the neighbor to build the wall, it is only him reaching for any kind of cooperation, instead of complete division. His true wishes are for the two of them to take down the wall, but that requires cooperation from…

    • 580 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry: Poem Analysis

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The works we studied within Creative Writing were all helpful in creating my own works to submit to the class. Throughout all of the reading, many of the works inspired me in different ways, whether it was short story plot ideas or word usage in the poems. While crafting my work for the final portfolio, I reviewed many of the poems from our poetry packet in an effort to find inspiration and to create new interesting images. I took the most inspiration for my formal poem, which I found most difficult to write. One of the poems that was most useful to me was Jilly Dybka’s “Memphis, 1976.” Dybka’s poem follows the sestina form; I also wrote my last poem in this form, so it helped to follow the form by looking at her poem as an example. Dybka’s…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Frost utilizes exceptional imagery and figurative to highlight the physical wall between the neighbor and him, satirizing the critical emotional estrangement and boundary between neighbors. While Frost deems the neighbors’ outdated insistance of keeping the wall unreasonable, the speaker’s attitude was somehow ambiguous for there exists a border in his mind. The small conflicts and emotional changes are realistically amplied by the figurative language and imagery.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The creation of borders and boundaries has been around since the beginning of civilization. The division of property and possessions among individuals establishes a sense of self-worth. The erection of fences and walls keeps property separate. Walls also serve as a means of separating worlds. Modern society demands the creation, and maintenance of these boundaries. In his poems, “The Tuft of Flowers,” and “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost explores the role that walls play in our lives. He examines how the lives of men are both separated, and drawn together by walls.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If a stone is missing form the fence, you can bet that the two men are out there putting it back together piece by piece. Frost's description of every detail in this poem is quite interesting, very pleasant to read, and extremely imaginable. He leaves the reader to decide for himself what deductions he is to make from the reading. On one hand, Frost makes literal implications about what the two men are doing. For instance, they are physically putting the stones back, one by one. Their dedication, commitment, and constant drive shines through when reading how persistence these men seem about keeping the wall intact. Quite the contrary however, is the inferences that something even deeper is going on. There is a sharing experience taking place here. Indeed, by laboring so hard, each man is experiencing physical repercussions, but they are also using this time as a "meet and greet"…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The boulders fall silently as nature begins to tear down man’s creation. In Robert Frosts poem “Mending Wall” the author offers lots of imagery to describe the walls human beings put up not only to physically separate themselves but also mentally. The two characters in this poem are described as two opposite beings not only in what is grown on their land but also expresses the difference in age between the two. Frost also expresses human emasculation when nature attacked the structures humans built that are thought to be strong and durable. Although really in reality human structures crumbles before the force of nature. In the poem through the comparison of the very different narrator and neighbor, Frost uses images of nature in dominant force that eventually destroys human endeavors, and shows the absurdity of rebuilding both literal and figurative walls that some universal force wants down.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The narrator complains of how his apple trees will never get across and eat his pine cones, meaning that he doesn't really see a need for this wall. The neighbor says “Good fences make good neighbors.” the narrator questions him “why?” without any empathy for the neighbors feelings. The speaker noticed that the neighbor…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ordinarily mundane takes a thought arousing spin in one of Robert Frost’s earlier works, “Mending Wall”. This poem is a striking take on an otherwise commonplace ritual between two farmers in the spring. Because the poem is in blank verse, it carries a casual folksy feel throughout, contradictory to its deeper message and paradoxical tone.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mending Wall

    • 1100 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The poem literally says that a stone wall separates the speaker's property from his neighbor's. Every year the wall is damaged from harsh weather and hunters. In the spring, the two neighbors walk the wall and jointly make repairs. Also, the speaker sees no reason for keeping the wall because there are no cows to be contained or anything, only apple and pine trees.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    If the fact of a broken wall is excuse enough to make a fiction about why it got that way, then that same fact may be the occasion for two together to take a journey in the mind. "Mending Wall" has nothing to do with one-world political ideals, with good or bad neighbor policies: on this point the title of the poem is helpful. It is a poem that celebrates a process, not the thing itself. It is a poem, furthermore, that distinguishes between two kinds of people: one who seizes the particular occasion of mending as fuel for the imagination and as a release from the dull ritual of work each spring an one who is trapped by work and by the New England past as it comes down to him in the form of his father's cliché. Tied as he is to his father's words that "Good fences make good neighbors," the neighbor beyond the hill is committed to an end, the fence's completion.…

    • 4816 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mending Wall Short Paper

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This passage from the poem uses figurative language to convey the theme. It even adds humor in lines 25 and 26 where the speaker uses a metaphor that relates to their lack of relationship. The neighbor only replies that good neighbors are made by good fences. It is evident that each of them has a different definition of what a good neighbor is. The speaker tries to make conversation. The neighbor is far less interested in building a relationship with the speaker. He is more concerned with building the wall between their properties so that they can go back to their secluded lives until next spring. The speaker uses each spring not to necessarily cause trouble with his neighbor (as he states in line 28), but rather disrupt the typical pattern of building the wall. The speaker tries to break down the emotional “wall” his neighbor has built between them. He is…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays