Essay Database

I find this poem to be easily read on a variety of levels, first, of course, being a literal level with two neighbors mending the wall between the two. "Good fences make good neighbors," (line 27) according to the man's father. The quote is a reference to the man's inability to be an individual, and his inability to move past his father's beliefs and thoughts, and gain his own. The neighbor is the one with the …

…narrator and not the neighbor who initiates the ritual of mending the wall. The narrator informs his neighbor that it is time to mend the gaps in the wall made by the hunters. The narrator knows that the neighbor will show up to perform this ritual every time because even if the narrator does not believe that "good fences make good neighbors" (line 27), he does know that the making of fences can make good neighbors.