summary of mending wall: Robert Frost Campfire
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line. Robert Frost & summary of mending wall
Posted by ESL teacher on March 18, 192004 at 23:53:05:
In Reply to: The Mending Wall posted by Brianna on September 24, 192002 at 20:54:28:
There is something unnatural about a wall. The forces of nature break it down. I meet my neighbor and we each put stones on our side of the wall to fix it. But it's hard for them to stay there. Sometimes I wonder why we have a wall, but my neighbor just repeats words his father told him: "Good fences make good neigbors." The poem is talking about how all humans are connected and that it is unnatural for us to be divided. It takes lots of effort to keep hatred between groups alive. The part about good fences means to protect yourself and hide and keep others away. This is a very unhealthy, unnatural attitude but it is held by religious groups against each other and nations against each other and races against each other. It is sort of a sad poem because the neighbor won't consider friendship. Instead he repeats old sayings about fences. I would say that Robert Frost was trying to tell us to stop building fences and walls between "us" and "them" in whatever ways we are divided or whatever ways we discriminate against each other.