Robert Frost's Mending Wall
The Numbness of Human Communication
Communication is very crucial in everyone’s live. One can never state his or her opinion unless one speaks his or her idea to the other. Moreover, by communicating to other people, one shows his or her concern of the surroundings. Just a simple question like, “Hi, how are you?” shows how much one cares about the people around him or her.
What will ever happen if people ceased to care about one another; that one’s problem is one’s business and not the others? What will happen if people neglected what is going on to their surroundings and start to take thing as it is? A great lack of communication between people may occur. People will mind their own businesses and carry on with their lives without the thought of others’ well being.
Robert Frost in one of his famous poems
Mending Wall also wants to uphold the theme of individuality; that there has been a lack of communication between people. It happens as a result of people’s ignorance toward one another. The ignorance occurs as an effect of the boundaries that people put between each other, as if one is more dominant than the other. Consequently, a restraining in one’s freedom of thought may arise.
Human’s communication is not always easy. The lack of communication among people happens because there have always been boundaries which is not only been made by oneself but also affected by the society. For instance, there are people who are self-restraint. They are the kind of people who like to keep their privacy in lives. They do communicate to others, however, there is always a notable barrier that they put between themselves and others. As is there are some limitations to where others can explore from the people who are reserved, especially upon their attitudes, ideology, and territories.
Furthermore, the great deficiency of interaction between people might occur also because of the society. The society’s general view upon certain matter often affects people. In another words, the society’s general view influences people’s reaction or frame of mind toward their environment.
For example, in the nineteenth century, American society thought of slavery as something logic. The society at that time thinks of people who have black skin as only half-human. Therefore, slaves did not have the right of controlling their own lives. The example shows that there was a gap in communication between the white community with the blacks. The whites always consider themselves as higher than the blacks.
From Robert Frost's Mending Wall, humankind erects and maintains real and symbolic barriers to protect and defend opposing stances, beliefs and territories. The title itself Mending Wall seems to suggest something about the poem. The adjective "Mending" takes the gerund, which means it, is talking about the present. Perhaps this suggest that the task is continuos and always there. Also the fact that it is not called Mending The Wall or Mending A Wall suggests that it is not just one wall, but it can be any wall anywhere. The title gives a very universal meaning.
The two neighbors in this poem seem to be building the wall initially about territory, but if we look deeper into it, it seems to be more about marking boundaries to stop arguments. It is shown in one of the neighbors’ only statement "Good fences make good neighbors." Both neighbors do not share the same ideology about the building of the wall. It seems as though they must repeat this task every springtime, but whereas one neighbor does it through tradition and because he wants to, the other appears to be just going along with it “Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, / One on a side.” he does not seem to understand. As in, “It comes to little more: / There where it is we do not need the wall: / He is all pine and I am apple orchard. / My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.” Also in " Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head: / Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it / Where there are cows? But here there are no cows."
The little communication between the two men appears in that the neighbor only seems to say one thing: "Good fences make good neighbors." The neighbor repeats this saying although he does not know whether the wall is necessary nor does he know whether it will make them a better neighbor. The same thing happens to people who make boundaries in their relationship with others. The only reason that people put up certain limitations in communicating with others is only because of tradition. Such as in the lines “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.' ”
What makes the fence building seem quite traditional is the reference the old things. The use of "old-stone savage armed" gives the idea of time passed, and yet still carrying on. The line where it mentions "his father's saying" suggests it is something that has been done for generations, and it is tradition. If people do something only in order to keep a tradition and not even bother why it has been that way, it may lead them to ignorance.
The neighbor's father did in the poem, reinforced and insured a lack of communication and, therefore, ignorance in the next generation. The neighbor is a perfect example of the product of these barriers, he does not truly know why the wall must be there but he never questions his father's words and understands that the wall is really keeping him and his neighbor from having a better friendship. The lines describe the neighbor "like an old-stone savage armed. / He moves in darkness as it seems to me." This darkness is the ignorance that people display as they mend the “fence” between themselves with the others.
The lack of mutual communication between people makes one being quite dominant over the other. As in the poem, the gap in balance communication among the two neighbors causes one neighbor to be more authoritative over the other. The line "I let my neighbor know beyond a hill;" shows how one feels reluctant to tell his thought toward someone who already set up some “walls”. The way he lets his neighbor know shows that he wants to do the right thing by informing him, yet if he does not really agree with the building of the wall, he would not bother to inform him.
Another thing that suggests the agreement in the poem is the way "beyond a hill" is used. It suggests boundaries and being far apart from one another; they do not seem to have good communications. There is also another reference to the boundary idea is where it says, "We keep the wall between us as we go." It seems to suggest that they are working together, but trying to keep each other apart as they do so, and so creating a boundary.
The reinforcement of ignorance should be stopped. In order to have a mutual communication; one should have the courage to break down the barriers set up by humankind. These barriers are what keep people from questioning or even contemplating things that happen in every day life. These barriers are often subconsciously put up and strengthened by society and may control one's thought. These techniques may be used by governments and other institutions to insure that someone does not know "too much" or uncover certain conspiracies. Further control of one’s thought should be prevented and people must help themselves so that human can eventually attain freedom of thought.
Robert Frost’s
Mending Wall represents what is also happening in human communication. Whether people realize it or not, the barrier being put up causes individuality. It is also restraining others freedom of thought, a process that has gone on and become reinforced over a long period of time. Boundaries between human communication should not really be there, despite the fact that they exist all around. Things should be free, rather than fenced in by walls, physical or otherwise.
