Robert Frost’s Poem “mending Wall”

In society, there are people who strongly disagree upon and question traditions and seek to change them. However, there are people who may also feel this way but they fear changing tradition, for after all a tradition is an event that has been occurring for a long duration of time. The fear of change in tradition can be found in two works of literature: Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall,” and Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery.” In Frost’s poem, this can be seen as a theme to the “Mending Wall.” The narrator of the poem has a neighbor and between them there is a wall made of stone. Hunters and the harsh weather knocks down this wall every winter and the two men must go out every spring to fix this wall separating them. He becomes very frustrated by rebuilding this wall every year and begins to question the purpose of the wall. To his neighbor, however, the wall represents a tradition to him and his family, for he stands behind his father’s saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The narrator wants to get rid of the wall and change this seemingly useless tradition of the wall and explains to his neighbor that this wall would only be useful if he were to have cows but he does not, rendering the wall useless in his opinion, for “my apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines,” the narrator told him. In my opinion, both men are afraid to change the tradition of the wall. As the reader, you can see that he wants to get rid of the wall but you can also infer that he has fear of changing it because he is not very assertive with his neighbor and doesn’t really fight back when his neighbor kept saying “good fences make good neighbors.” You can also see that the neighbor is afraid to change tradition. “He will not go behind his father’s saying, and he likes having thought of it so well. He says again ‘Good fences make good neighbors.” The neighbor repeatedly answering the