Techniques and Ideas of Two Poems

By James Cox, Student

Mending Wall and The Tuft of Flowers

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

People spread their ideas, ideals and opinions around in different ways. They may write to newspapers, make speeches, or even run for office. The poet, however, usually expresses ideas through his work.

Robert Frost, an American poet, writes simple poems often dealing with nature, or the country, or both. His poems, however, often have underlying ideas. This is true for two of his poems, “Mending Wall,” and “The Tuft of Flowers.”

“Mending Wall” appears to be at first to be a poem about fixing the stone wall in Spring. If you look deeper, you will find messages about walls between people, pushing people apart. The author questions this. A wall has useful purposes, it will stop cows escaping from your field and ruining a neighbours crop. But when there is no need for a wall, it serves only to keep the two neighbours separated.

One of the ideas in “The Tuft of Flowers” is similar to “Mending wall.“ Written in rhyming couplets,. Robert Frost philosophises about men working together. By the middle of the poem, he is thinking that men must work apart, but at the end he realises that “men work together, whether they are together or apart.”

“Mending Wall” is a case of men working apart. By keeping to their side of the fence, the narrator and his neighbour keep the metaphorical rift between them. They each pick up only the stones on their respective sides. Instead, if they had worked together, helping with the big rocks, and passing over the small rocks, they may well have been more efficient and finished the job earlier. But, Because of the stubborn nature of his neighbour, likened to a stone age savage, they continue to practise a useless task due to a single worn cliché: “Good fences make good neighbours.”

In “The Tuft of Flowers,” as the narrator is helping the mower, they take an entirely different attitude. Instead of working g at almost cross purposes, as in “Mending Wall,” the men work together for the common goal. It has been said that if the human race would all work together in harmony, a lot of good would occur because of it. Indeed, many a science fiction story concerns humanity binding together, resolving their differences, to face a common foe.

In conclusion, the fact that poets spread around morals, is a positive one. For society to advance, improve and evolve, people n4ed to spread around their view on what is wrong. If people take notice of the messages people like Robert Frost send out, and improve for the better, then our culture will never stagnate.