Robert Frost's Mending Wall

Sometimes we feel that isolation is the best way protect ourselves, our fears, secrets, and insecurities. In “ Mending Wall” Robert Frost describes the narrator and the neighbor having different positions on whether or not the wall between them, both literally and figuratively should be taken down. Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall”, is about the relationship between the narrator and their neighbor. While the narrator states, “Something there that doesn’t love a wall”, suggesting that the neighbor believes the wall is no longer needed, the neighbor replies with,“Good fences make good neighbors”, disagreeing on the idea of removing the wall. The positions of these characters are neither right nor wrong based on their own reasoning on what is best to do with the wall. For it is their own experiences that define their needs for
The narrator has developed feelings for the neighbor over a long period of time since they rebuild the wall each year when it falls apart. The narrator states, “I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; and on a day we meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again.” The narrator imagines what life without the wall would be like; the narrator tells the neighbor that he or she would respect the neighbor’s boundaries literally and in a sense figuratively when the narrator states, “My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pine.” The narrator also believes the wall between them to be unnecessary when the narrator thinks, “If I could put the notion in his head: Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it where there are cows? But here there are no cows.” But each time the narrator suggests for the wall to be removed, the neighbor always responds with, “Good fences make good friends,” implying that the wall needs to