Mending Wall -- Robert Frost

"Good fences make good neighbors."

--mid 17th century proverb

In this poem, Frost and his neighbor are working their yearly task of mending a stone wall between their properties. It had been ruffed up and broken by hunters during the winter months, leaving it in dire need of repair.

The question to the reader remains: What is his neighbor's real meaning behind the phrase "Good fences make good neighbors"?

Frost states that the wall is unnecessary by saying: "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."

Does this neighbor have a quiet dislike for Frost as a neighbor? If this reads true, then there is a possibility that "Good fences make good neighbors," means the fence is the neighbor rather than Frost. Or that keeping your fellow man at a distance somehow forces him to be disciplined or leave you alone.

Growing up, I lived next door to a family who had a split-rail fence between their yard and ours. I would watch the man who lived there and my father work together to fix the fence constantly. The man and my father were friendly acquaintances, but were never actually friends. Eventually, the family moved away and another family took

their place. These people didn't like my family as much as the last. In fact, the man disliked my family quite a bit, but would still have a civil conversation with my father. I noticed that when these people moved in, they made the fence taller and more solid. They too moved out a few years after, and an older couple with no children moved in. This man had a terrible dislike for my father from the onset of their meeting. My father tried his best to be friendly, but the man could not be swayed. He disliked him passionately and made rude comments and did anything he could to hurt my father's feelings and sense of pride about the land he owned. This man pulled the chest-high fence the family before him had built and put trees in its place.

Do you notice a pattern in the previous story? As the dislike from the new families next door grew, so did the height of the fence.

There is a bit of truth to the idea that good fences make good neighbors, but it seems it doesn't mean what one would initially think it would. I believe that if a man puts a tall fence to divide his property, he wants no good neighbor but the fence itself.

This rule goes for countries, states, cities, et-cetera as well. A place that builds a wall around itself wants nothing more than to separate from its surroundings. Tearing down walls leads to community and knowing one another, however putting these barriers up leads to an almost ignorant quality between the two parties.

Answer this for yourself: DO good fences make good neighbors?