Robert Frost

In Mending Wall (1914), the natural world has been used to explain the futility of having walls which segregate each other. Its context has heavy influence on the poem as it was published at the dawn of WW1, where geographical borders were tightened and saw an increase in dissociation based on superficial classes. The allegorical poem begins with "Something that doesn't love a wall", an ambiguous statement which leaves the reader wondering what this "something" is and why it has a prejudice against walls. Frost recalls the annual "outdoor game" which he and his neighbour ironically meet to "set the wall between us again". However the persona is in disagreement with the neighbour’s belief (“Good fences make good neighbours”), claiming that he "could say elves" to his neighbour; a subtle mockery of the man's primitive beliefs, claiming that he may believe in the existence of elves. Frost chastises the laborious procedure of "bring a stone grasped…like an old stone savaged arm" with an enjambment to add a prolonged effect and repetitive routine, which requires no thinking at all. "Like an old stone savage" is also an exaggerated simile to imply that they have gone back to Stone Age like ideologues, ignoring all human development. Frost continues to condemn the mending of the wall by dehumanizing themselves to be "cows", who need the maintenance and prevention of freedom provided by the wall. Frost justifies his view by bestowing nature with an omnipotent status, whom made "gaps which even two can past abreast", whilst having "no one has seen them made or heard them made". This correlates to the strong romantic belief, where nature is almost god-like. As nature, whom the reader can determine as being the once ambiguous "something", is making attempts to destroy the wall, the truth can be dictated by nature's will, which inspired Frost's egalitarian values.

After Apple-Picking (1914) is another noted Robert Frost poem, in which he explores the natural cycle of life,...