24 pages • 48 minutes read
Robert FrostA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Rather than speaking straightforwardly, the speaker opens “Mending Wall” with a riddle: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (Line 1). The word order is convoluted and spell-like, more suited to a fairy tale character than a rural farmer. With this line, Frost provides insight into the speaker’s personality: he is imaginative and playful. He pays close attention to sunlight on the stones (Line 3) and even to the “frozen ground-swell” beneath, which he does not refer to directly by name (Line 2). Instead, Frost dances around directly saying the word the reader expects: frost, which is also the name of the poet himself. He draws attention to this detail by pretending to withhold it, perhaps encouraging the reader to align the poet with the unnamed speaker.
While “Mending Wall” presents a strong dichotomy between the speaker, who wants to tear down walls, and the neighbor, who wants to maintain them, it is the speaker who repairs the wall first. He builds it back up where the frost and hunters have damaged it during the winter (Lines 6-7). It is also the speaker, not the neighbor, who arranges their annual ritual of repair (Line 12).
By Robert Frost
Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost
After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost
A Time To Talk
Robert Frost
Birches
Robert Frost
Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
October
Robert Frost
Once by the Pacific
Robert Frost
Out, Out—
Robert Frost
Putting in the Seed
Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
The Death of the Hired Man
Robert Frost
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
West-Running Brook
Robert Frost