“Boulders” could represent differences between not only the two neighbors but also differences between all mankind. The word “loaves” and “balls” can represent big and small problems or differences between people. Frost was trying to challenge the reader to ask whether or not we need to build walls around ourselves in order to protect our own interests. In this poem, he also wrote “We wear ourselves rough from handling them.” If you think of the boulders as problems or differences, you can see how we often waste so much time in our lives fighting over the small issues that we lose sight of the big pictures. The wall is made up of the ”boulders” which consist of both “loaves and balls” to make up this large mass that divide the two neighbors. Social boundaries are often created in this manner. The differences or prejudices are formed and are made up of both small and large differences between people. In time, the differences will create a boundary between the people within a society. The phrase “Good fences make good neighbors” helps to explain the use of the wall within this poem.The first person in the poem is constantly wrestling with the question, do good fences make good neighbors, and I do not think that he ever agrees with his neighbor beyond the hill. As the poem began, he is questioning why they do this task every spring and what is the purpose of doing it.Something there is that does not love a wallThat sends the frozen-ground-swell under it.And spills the upper boulders in the sun;And make grasp that even two can pass abreast. (1-4)This is how Frost began to tackle this issue. Asking the question, “What is it that does not love a wall” and then giving examples that continued to support his belief that good fences do not make good neighbors.Robert Frost was a man who believed in the simple thing and good country living. The New Eng...
