Mending Wall

Mending Wall

In the “Mending Wall” , is a poem about a person (speaker) who has a wall between him/her and their neighbor talk about whether they should keep the wall up or not. Every spring after winter is done they come out and repair the stone wall between them, but then the speaker suddenly doesn’t want to mend or repair the wall anymore, but his neighbor keeps on encouraging him/her to do so. To me, the overall story is talking about the wall and how it acts as a barrier for the neighbors and the speaker as a sign of privacy and limits. I strongly believe that the wall acts as a symbol and representation of one's limits and privacy due to multiple reasons.

The first reason is possibly the speaker wants the neighbor to be a more open minded person, rather than someone who seals themselves in and aloof from everyone else. In the quote “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down could potentially mean that someone else rather than the speaker want the wall down, also meaning another friend maybe.

Secondly, is the fact that wall keeps breaking.To me it seems like someone is invading the neighbors space and privacy. This could maybe mean that the speaker is breaking the wall since he/she does seem to want it down in the poem, with the speaker wanting to blame it on “elves” and all if he/she ever tore the wall down without telling the neighbors.

The third and final reason is, that the neighbor is always mending the stone wall between the speaker and himself, which again acts as a barrier to protect his privacy from anyone, which in this case is the speaker. The quote “Good fences make good neighbors,” would make much more sense if the neighbor and speaker were friend since both of them would need some amount of privacy to be good friends to each other.

All in all, "Mending Wall” was a great poem and could have had multiple themes in the