Prose

TOUFIQ UL ALAM


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3 july 2014

My understanding of 'Mending Wall' by Robert Frost

Wall = symbol of boundary, limitation, lack of freedom, conservativeness



It is in the nature of humans to be possessive and create a personal circle into which they do not want someone else to come and go as they please. They have in their nature a sort of secrecy and definiteness and they like it to be physically emphasized everywhere.


Although in some cases a 'wall' is wanted and appreciated, being too engrossed about a boundary everywhere will simply divide the whole of humankind and they will become selfish and self-centered. They will only be kind to themselves.


The Practice of creating and supporting a wall also means that whatever happens outside my wall is none of my concern. While it may have personal justifications, it cannot be globally exercised.


There are 'hunters' and 'yelping dogs' everywhere in this world and they not only are disrespectful to these boundaries but also make a profession or enjoyment out of them. They do not care what happens to the boundaries, they will find their place and time to entertain their necessities and luxuries at any cost. Here hunters refer to the powerful people and yelping dogs refer to the people who are fed and leashed by these powerful people and act on their command mindlessly.


The maker of the boundaries in this world meet every year to renew their boundaries and they want to say that these boundaries will make them more friendly. But in reality, their conservation gives the bad people an opportunity to take advantage and there is a hole in the boundaries everywhere that will always be exploited.


Although there are people who advocate for a new world with no boundaries, the conservatives will always choose to make walls out of disbelief and distrust.

The speaker wants to be a part of a world where there are no boundaries and people will learn to accept everything as natural and not distinguish and discriminate.


The pine and apple trees stand for two different beliefs and cultures. The speaker wants to say that even if we lose the boundary the cultures will never eat and digest each other resulting in one culture getting stronger while the other vanishes. The cultural differences themselves are boundaries enough to keep one's culture safe and sound.


The speaker says that boundaries are for those who do not respect and understand and are not enlightened; as they do not know they need to be pointed out in detail. But for people like the speaker who are educated and enlightened the physical boundaries bear no significant value to themselves as people like the speaker value and respect cultural differences.


The speaker wants to make the advocates of boundaries understand that by creating a wall they are not just limiting themselves they are also being deprived of all the things that lie outside of the boundaries.


The speaker compares the conservative possessiveness to darkness and he finds it ironic in this world that by creating definite boundaries people of this modern world do not have one less problem in their lives rather the number of problems has grown many folds.






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