Loading Likes... “Mending Wall” is a poem that is framed in an almost playful tone, but asks something rather deep of the reader – to consider why they build walls. Every year the narrator and his neighbors fix the wall between them, and every year it breaks again when winter comes. The two of them have no livestock, the their plants are ones that will not harm each other, so why do they build this wall? Is it simply tradition? The neighbor seems to think so, at least to a point – all he does is repeat the saying he learned from his father: “Good fences make good neighbors.” It seems the narrators main reason for building the wall is to keep hunters off of his land. His question to the neighbor is not posed as a serious one, but as him trying to be cheeky.

I think this poem gets at the strange nature of humans. We are naturally social animals, yet we often fear showing emotion to others and letting ourselves be open. We wall ourselves in to protect ourselves from getting hurt, and because it is what is expected of us. People are expected to keep their problems and emotions to themselves in most situations. But the more we wall ourselves in, the more likely we are to become unstable until the wall bursts, and we are sent back to rebuild it.