Mending Wall
Out, Out-By: Isaac Tudor, Ryne Higgins, and
Michael Timm
Robert Frost
• Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 and he died on January
29, 1963
• Most of his poems described realistic depictions of rural life in
America
• Was also highly regarded for his command of American colloquial
speech
• In 1872, Frost proposed to Elinor White
• Frost is payed for the first time for his poems, and he goes to show
Elinor a copy, but she doesn't really care
• Depressed and in despair, Frost goes to the Dismal Swamp and
wanders for a period of time, hopping train cars and hitching rides
on boats
• He eventually returns and has a son, Elliott
• In 1899, Frost learns his mother has cancer
Robert Frost (continued)
•
•
•
•
In 1900, his son Elliott tragically dies of cholera
Shortly after, his mother dies of cancer
Frost's health declines and Elinor suffers severe depression
Frost was constantly surrounded by life and death, for his son
Carol was born two years after Elliott dies
• He had two more children, one of which dies two days after birth
• These tragic and joyous events most likely inspired his writing, for
many of his works came later in his life
Mending Wall
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
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."
Mending Wall: Summary
• The Speaker talks of a force that always breaks down the wall
between his own and his neighbors property
• Every year he and his neighbor have to repair it
• The Speaker doesn't understand why it's nessisary to have a wall
divideing his neighbors pine trees, from his apple trees.
• He asks his neighbor why this is nessesary, and he says that "
Good fences make good neighbors."
• His neighbor and himself go about fixing the fence that seemingly
has no practicle purpose.
Mending Wall: Analysis
• Through this poems portraile of the wall the theme of
isolation is represented.
• The speaker and the neighbor get together every year to
rebuild a wall which represents something keeping
people apart.
• There is a force that trys to break down this wall
between us, in the story this force is represented by
hunters and nature, showing us that naturally we
shouldn't be sepparated like this.
• In spite of the fact that this separation is natural, we,
who is represented by the neighbor and the speaker, still
work towards this rebuilding this wall of separation.
Out, Out--
Out, Out--
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
continued...
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.a boy counts so much
when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
Out, Out-- (summary)
• The narrator at first describes the noise made by the sawing
machine as it makes stove-length logs.
• He describes the smell of the breeze as it blows off the timber.
• He also describes the hard working family that has a son that is
sawing and a daughter preparing supper. It says how they don’t
have time for the finer things of life.
• Frost says how nothing happened and how everybody seemed
safe. Soon the boy looses concentration at a vital moment. When
the boys sister calls for super, the saw that had earlier “snarled”,
“As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, leaped out at the
boy's hand, or seemed to leap’.
Out, Out-- (summary)
• The saw cuts off the boy’s hand.
• The boy was being overworked and was sick of it. His
relationship with his father also isn’t very good.
• There is a slight hint that the overworked boy had a suicidal
moment. The story behind the whole incident seems to be that the
boy was overworked and was sick of it.
• It’s like the boy was a little insane, laughing guiltily at giving his
hand to the saw.
• The family seemed heartless at the end and then they just returned
to work without their family member.
Out, Out-- (analysis)
• The author makes it clear that most of the farmers don’t pay much
attention to the surrounding natural beauty.
• There is the theme of discontent between the father and the son. The
boy feels as tho his father doesn't love him and only uses him for
work.
• Frost seems to blame the work ethic or slave-driving values of the
boy’s family. He narrator suggests “the spirit of the family was mean
spirited for denying the boy the half hour that a boy counts so much
when saved from work”.
• He also says that the boy “must have given the hand’. Although this is
unlikely to be true, the narrator seems to mean that the boy was
used to obeying orders at home.
Out, Out-- (analysis)
• He suggests that the boy offered his hand willingly to the saw. In his
confusion, the boy accidently put his hand in the wrong place.
• The boy was being overworked and was sick of it. His relationship
with his father also isn’t very good.
• The boy was too exhausted to react on time and may have even let the
saw slice his hand when the narrator says, “neither refused the
meeting.”
• The dazed boy reacted strangely, with a rueful laugh and there is no
mention or any gesture or period of mourning.
• The family seemed heartless at the end and then they just returned
to work without their family member.