e wall that divides their property. The speaker realizes that questioning the existing wall is senseless, but he likes to view the task of repairing the wall playfully. Frost writes, Oh, just another kind of out-door game (28). As if playing a game, the speaker tends to his side of the field, and his neighbor to the opposing side. Frost writes, Spring is the mischief in me (28). By this, the speaker knows that the acceptance of the wall is a way of life, and that his questions against the wall will produce no substantial answers. Wallace writes, Frost knows as well how radical and difficult it is to take in another, and yet maintain a sense of ones own and the others distinctness (227). The statement encompasses the entire theme of Mending Wall.The poems central moment occurs when the narrators tone shifts from playful to dark. This is apparent when Frost writes, I see him there bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like and old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, not of Bolanos 3woods only and of shade of trees (29). At this point, the speaker sees the distance between himself and his neighbor. He also sees darkness in the neighbors acceptance of the simple phrase, Good fences make good neighbors. The neighbor hides behind the repetition of this phrase. The speaker also hides, but behind his teasing questions. Patricia Wallace writes, He realizes that it seems to him the neighbor is surrounded and enclosed by something like darkness, a darkness perceptible to the speaker who must know his own separateness more full (227). The wall separates the two men, but brings them together in time of repair.A wall serves as a reminder of the unique individuality of each person. It can also serve as a challenge to climb. A wall can be a driving force to overcome the individual world and to peer over to the world of another. Robert Frost explores the role that walls play in life. He desc...
