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Consider how Frost treats the theme of human alienation, the feeling of not being connected to either another individual, a community, nature, one’s self, or one’s destiny. To what extent are his poems’ speakers aware of their alienation

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ahenkorah | 17:25 Fri 23rd Mar 2012 | Books & Authors
8 Answers
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
5

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
10

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.
15

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:

“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
20

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
25

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:
30

“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.
35

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
40

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well
45

He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
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okay i have considered it......what now?
Not as good as pam ayers.
eh....??
I'm more worried about how frost will ruin the wall when it's done.
Should be ok if it's a tied house wall. The single brick ones split very easily
Who is this Frost bloke?
I don't see a please or a would you mind anywhere.
Is this theme one of human alienation? It seems the speaker is attempting to avoid just that. He also judges his neighbour for wishing to have and build a wall, and feels pretty smug in his judgement. He thinks anyone who wants a wall "moves in darkness", and he laughs at "Good fences make good neighbours."
He is also being mischievous about the fence, which is a delight to read. Sorry - I may be extra-dumb, but I cannot see human alienation in any of this. I see and feel beauty and music and mischief in the words, with a little healthy scorn thrown in. Wonderful.

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Consider how Frost treats the theme of human alienation, the feeling of not being connected to either another individual, a community, nature, one’s self, or one’s destiny. To what extent are his poems’ speakers aware of their alienation

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