Mending Wall

1. The speaker’s description of the “something” that “doesn’t love a wall” (Line 1) most strongly implies which of the following?

A) Boundaries are destructive.

B) Boundaries are unnatural.

C) Boundaries are healthy.

D) Boundaries are unavoidable.

2. The speaker likens himself and his neighbor to which of the following?

A) apple and pine trees

B) snow and fire

C) elves and giants

D) roads and walls

3. What "darkness” does the speaker suggest his neighbor is “mov[ing] in” (Line 40), beyond the darkness of “the shade of trees” (Line 41)?

A) anger

B) despair

C) ignorance

D) evil

For each of the following questions, write a one-sentence response based on details in the poem.

4. During what season do the speaker and his neighbor repair their shared wall?

5. What saying does the neighbor repeat in the poem?

1. B. Although human activity (e.g. hunting) contributes to the destruction of the wall, the speaker primarily focuses on the natural forces (e.g. frost) that cause it to partially crumble each year. The implication is, in part, that human society constructs unnecessary boundaries (figurative and literal) that do not exist in the natural world.

2. A. In line 23, the speaker says, “He is all pine and I am apple orchard.” The literal description of what stands on each side of the wall also reflects the speaker’s sense of himself as more civilized than his neighbor.

3. C. The speaker expresses frustration with (as he sees it) his neighbor’s inability or unwillingness to interrogate long-accepted practices and maxims. He also compares the man to an “old-stone savage” (Line 39), implying that the speaker sees him as less civilized and reflective than he himself.

4. Short answer: Spring is when the speaker and his neighbor repair their shared wall: “[A]t spring mending time we find [the gaps] there. / I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; / And on a day we meet to walk the line” (Lines 11-13).

5. Short answer: The neighbor repeats the saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

1. Which of the following contributes to the poem’s conversational tone?

A) trochaic meter

B) dactylic meter

C) free verse

D) blank verse

2. Which of the following is an example of enjambment?

A) “The work of hunters is another thing: / I have come after them and made repair” (Lines 5-6)

B) “We keep the wall between us as we go. / To each the boulders that have fallen to each” (Lines 15-16)

C) “Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head” (Lines 27-28)

D) “He moves in darkness as it seems to me, / Not of woods only and the shade of trees” (Lines 40-41)

3. Which of the following is an example of personification?

A) “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (Line 1)

B) “No one has seen them made or heard them made” (Line 10)

C) “And some are loaves and some so nearly balls” (Line 17)

D) “Oh, just another kind of outdoor game” (Line 21)

4. Which of the following is an example of alliteration?

A) “gaps even two can pass abreast” (Line 4)

B) “To please the yelping dogs” (Line 9)

C) “like an old-stone savage armed” (Line 39)

D) “Not of woods only and the shade of trees” (Line 41)

1. D. “Mending Wall” is written in blank verse, which is metered but unrhymed and therefore more closely mirrors spoken language.

2. C. “I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head” is an example of enjambment because the sentence continues from one line to the next without punctuation.

3. A. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” is an example of personification because it ascribes a human emotion—love—to a nonhuman entity (the “something” that partially destroys the wall each year).

4. C. “[S]tone savage” is an example of alliteration because it features the repetition of an initial consonant sound (“s”).

1. What words and images does the speaker use to characterize his neighbor? Do you think his assessment is fair and/or accurate? Why or why not?

2. Why might Frost have titled the poem as he did? Does the phrase “mending wall” simply refer to the act of mending the wall, or does the wall itself “mend” something? If so, what and how?

3. How would you describe the mood of “Mending Wall”? What specific phrases or moments gave you that impression, and how?