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Transcript

TPCASTT for "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Brendan Chow

AP Literature (Block F)

December 18, 2017

"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

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.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

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 neighbours."

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Title

Title

  • At first glance, it seems like the title refers to the act of mending/fixing a wall

Paraphrase

  • A wall separates the narrator's property from his neighbor
  • In the spring, after the winter weather knocks it down, they meet up to repair the wall
  • The narrator doesn't understand the reason for the wall, and he questions his neighbor about the need for the wall
  • However, his neighbor simply states an old-fashioned saying: "Good fences make good neighbors"
  • The narrator tries to convince his neighbor otherwise, as there is no reason for the wall, but again the neighbor repeats the old-fashioned saying

Connotation

  • The wall in the poem does not completely have a negative connotation, as it may seem at first, as the wall is what keeps the neighbor's property separate from the narrator's, acting as a barrier
  • The wall has a deeper meaning, in that the narrator and his neighbor meet up every single year in order to mend the wall; they otherwise wouldn't have met up if there was no wall to mend
  • Thus, the tradition of repairing the wall every spring is what helps to preserve the relation between the narrator and his neighbor; rather than being a symbol of hostility and separation, the wall may represent peace and stability

Attitude (Tone)

  • The tone of the narrator is skeptical and rational, as he questions the true purpose of the wall and the reason for mending it each year
  • The narrator ponders about all the possible reasons for needing a wall but can think of none; he then addresses the situation to his neighbor
  • Although questioning the purpose of the wall, the narrator ultimately remains undecided about its significance, as he continues to accept the tradition but rejects his neighbor's saying that "Good walls make good neighbors" as an insufficient reason
  • Therefore, the narrator maintains a mixed attitude toward the wall

Shifts

  • The poem has a minor shift at the beginning where the wintertime shifts to the "mending time" of the spring; thus winter can be seen as a symbol of destruction and spring is the time of repairing what was destroyed
  • There is an overall shift in the poem when the narrator follows the annual tradition of calling his neighbor down to repair the wall to the narrator questioning the actual purpose of their tradition
  • Thus, there is a shift from acceptance of the tradition to questioning the true purpose of the wall

Title (re-examine)

  • My original prediction about the meaning of the title was somewhat correct, in that the poem had to do with the repair/mending of a wall
  • However, the title suggests a deeper meaning about barriers and relationships

Title (re-examine)

Theme

  • The theme of the poem is that the act of rebuilding barriers in a sense helps to "preserve" a relationship while also creating an emotional barrier, hence the saying "Good walls make good neighbors"
  • Mending the wall brings the narrator & his neighbor together each year, but they have differing views about the wall
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