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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 13, 2011 21:32:15 GMT -5
Fairly simple question (or so it seems).
This fence in "Mending Wall;" is it bringing the speaker and his neighbor together, or keeping them apart?
nb4 "IT DOES BOTH, YA KNOW."
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Post by Marina on Jun 13, 2011 23:52:09 GMT -5
I feel like there's some grudge match going on between them, but it's so old they've forgotten what it is. But when the day comes to repairing the wall, which (the wall) I think is important to both of them because otherwise they wouldn't bother, it's like a truce day for them. They know they can't fix it by themselves, and the other man is the only one who knows the importance of the wall.
So I think it's the only thing that keeps them together.
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 14, 2011 3:36:45 GMT -5
I would tend to agree. The kind of quiet cordiality that passes between them when they fix the wall is pretty sweet when you think about it.
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Post by andreaisabbbw on Jun 14, 2011 22:19:49 GMT -5
I don't think the wall is bringing them together or separating them. It's more like a barrier between different types of people. That's why the speaker says, "There where it is we do not need the wall: / He is all pine and I am apple orchard." He also says that they will never mix, which is probably referring to how one sort of people don't interact with another. The refrain enforces that and the speaker doesn't like it, creating and highlighting the barrier between him and his "neighbor".
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 14, 2011 22:24:35 GMT -5
Ah. But even with their key differences, they still have to come together to fix the fence once a year.
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Post by andreaisabbbw on Jun 15, 2011 14:20:09 GMT -5
True. They could be rebuilding the barrier that separates them. Since it was published in 1914 it could be dealing with the social barrier between high and low society that was more apparent back then. He thinks it's more logical to separate farms and livestock, which is why he says, "Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it / Where there are cows? / But here there are no cows."
I was going to write more but I forgot what it was I was writing about. Haha.
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Post by Fuck Yeah Dion on Jun 15, 2011 16:44:53 GMT -5
Interesting interpretation. I've been so wrapped up in the wall all the years, I've rarely paid attention to much else going on in the poem.
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