Since the beginning of time mankind has found that harmony and togetherness are more
beneficial to the entirety of the group than dissonance and separation. When society works together as one, it attains the desired objective more rapidly and efficiently. The ultimate goal can only be reached after differences have been overcome, and cooperation has occurred. All of these acts are clearly identified in the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost. He uses the wall as an extended metaphor to reveal the narrator's thoughts about overcoming differences, cooperation, and unity.
Before the members of any group can merge together, they must overcome the differences among them. Frost makes this apprehensible in his poem through the dialogue of the narrator. To exhibit the differences in himself and his neighbor, the narrator declares, "He is all pine and I am apple orchard" (line twenty-four). Instead of working together to overcome these discrepancies, they fill in the gaps in the wall to promote further division.
Robert Frost, American poet
Robert Frost, Dartmouth 1896.
The NarratorThe narrator begins to ponder the original motives for erecting the wall when he questions his neighbor's statement "Good fences make good neighbors" (line twenty-seven). The narrator then contrives the notion of arguing that his neighbor's statement is ungrounded. However, he realizes that his neighbor must understand that the wall was built without reason himself.
After differences have been overcome, it is necessary to use those aberrations to help solve problems and gain mutual benefit. The narrator ponders the notion of cooperating with the neighbor to take down the wall, but he is discouraged from that because of his neighbor's persistence in the quote: "Good fences make good neighbors" (line twenty-seven). While the narrator does cooperate with the neighbor to build the wall, it is only him reaching for any kind of cooperation,