Mowing and Mending Wall\'s

¶ … Mowing," and "Mending Wall," by Robert Frost. Specifically, it will establish some points of similarity and difference in the two works. Both "Mowing" and "Mending Wall" celebrate the joy of honest labor, but with two very different results. In "Mowing," the man is satisfied by his labor, but in "Mending Wall," the man is not.

ROBERT FROST POEMS

The narrator in "Mending Wall" never names himself, but he does not need to. It is clear who he is as the lines of the poem develop themselves. He is a gentle man, who does not really need the fence to show what land is his, and what land belongs to his neighbors. "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" (Frost). Frost shows he is kind and gentle by the way he speaks of the hunters, as if he is not one of them, and that they please their dogs at the expense of the poor rabbits they are chasing (Frost). He makes it clear from the very beginning of the poem that he does not enjoy having the wall, and does not see a need for it, as he thinks that nature does not like the wall either, that is why she sends "ground swells" in the frozen ground, to break the wall in places, and pull it apart (Frost).

The narrator also has a sense of humor he reveals when the fence is no longer needed between their woods. "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 neighbours'" (Frost). This is a touch of humor from the narrator, but it is also ironic that the neighbor believes the only way to be a "good neighbor" is to place a barrier between the farms. It is sad, really, because it seems the best neighbors are those who would not need fences between them. There is no sense of humor in "Mowing." Frost makes it clear the narrator of the poem is there to work. He is no-nonsense in his attack on the hay that needs mowing, and this is clear when he thinks to himself, "The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows" (Frost). The narrator in "Wall" has time to "stop and smell the flowers" as he labors, but the narrator who is mowing does not. That is the major difference between these two poems, one is all work and no play, and the other is work, interspersed with introspection and wonder. The narrator building the wall is laboring because he has to, not because he wants to, while the man mowing hay seems to enjoy his work, and the sweat (and hay) it produces.

In "Wall," the narrator shows, with his disregard of the fence, that he has less regard for his neighbor because of it. He does not see the need for a fence, and makes that clear throughout the poem. "Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head: / 'Why do they make good neighbours?' Isn't it / Where there are cows? But here there are no cows" (Frost). Again, he shows his humorous side, but he also shows his displeasure with the wall, and with the person who feels such a need for a wall. He also wishes that the neighbor would see they do not need a wall, so he did not have to keep on thinking about it. "I'd rather / He said it for himself" (Frost). It is as if the man is having a conversation with himself, while the narrator of "Mowing" is much to busy to chat with himself as he works. The poem is shorter, and that is because the man's thoughts are less complex, he is too busy for inner contemplation, he just wants to get the job done and move along toward the next chore. It is clear he loves his land, just as the man in "Walls" loves his. In "Mowing," the man thinks, "Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak / To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows" (Frost). He loves what he does and the results of his hard work. He is one with the land, as is the narrator in "Walls," which is why the wall disturbs him so much, it divides the land, and makes it a thing to possess, rather than a simple and everlasting joy.

The wall in "Mending Wall" is a metaphor for the differences that people allow to come between them, and how they react to them. Everyone has differences of opinion with each other, and if their differences are strong enough, they allow a wall to grow between them, so they never can fully see the other side and their arguments. That is what this wall represents, and what the two neighbors represent. The wall also represents labor, as does the whispering scythe in "Mowing." Hard labor was common in Frost's time, and both poems clearly show how important labor was to the people of the time. They did not have the "gift of idle hours" (Frost), they had to spend their time in tasks like mending the wall and mowing the hay to survive. The joys of labor are both celebrated here, but they have different outcomes. One man is satisfied with his labor, and the other is disturbed by it.