The Explication An Universal Thought
In his poem "Mending Wall," renown poet, Robert Frost, conveys a universal thought that an individual will continue to abide by an understood ideal based solely on what is said, not what has been personally explicated or questioned through symbolism, repetition, and irony.
Throughout the poem, Frost utilizes symbolism to exemplify the theme. The wall, for example, represents the unnecessary boundaries that man has erected to enclose his "pine and ...apple" (l. 24) trees. It isolates men from their neighbors, severing not only the "frozen-ground-swell under it" (l. 2), but also any hopes of unlimited comaraderie that lay there before its establishment. Frost mentions that the speaker is an "apple orchard" (l. 24) and his neighbor is "all pine" (l. 24), symbolizing the unnecessitated creation of boundaries and innate objects that are bounded in vain. Though the objects differ in every aspect, they are essentially immobile and unthreatening.
Robert Frost, American poet
English: Handwritten version of 'Happiness makes u...
Robert Frost, Dartmouth 1896.The speaker even notes that his apple trees "will never get across" (l. 25) and cause harm to his neighbor's pine trees. He realizes that he and his neighbor "do not need the wall" (l. 24); yet, the edifice of "loaves and ...balls" (l. 17) prevails.
Another poetic device that Frost employs to communicate the theme is repetition. Though it is used in moderation, the phrases leap out to the reader. For instance, the speaker verbalizes twice, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall"(l. 1). The phrase is arranged so eloquently, by use of an anastrophe, that the reader cannot help but to inquire of the something. Placed strategically, the phrase induces the reader to create his own conjecture as to who or what the something is of the speaker's thoughts, an antithesis of the theme. Frost does not stop there; he proceeds to use...