Robert Frost Essay, Research Paper

Living in America is a unique experience for all of us. Our nation is truly diverse. However, even with a common national home, we continue to erect boundaries around types and groups of people. The two poems, Mending Wall and Pigeons portray the feeling of American social boundaries.

Robert Frost s Mending Wall is about barriers people live within for no logical reason. Frost shows immediately that there is something wrong when he begins the poem with something there is that doesn t love a wall . The poem tells of two neighbors who seem to be second-generation landowners. They never discuss why, but every spring the two meet to walk along their respective sides of the wall and fix all the holes that have been created over the year. Although it is evident that they like the wall fixed once a year, they don t seem to mind the holes in the wall when their backs are turned. Leakage from one side to the other is not the entire reason behind the task. The speaker goes as far as to say to the stones themselves, stay where you are until our backs are turned . You see, there is no reason for the wall to be there. The land is used differently on either side and neither uses of land would be affected by the other sides usage. Frankly, The wall serves no real purpose.

Our society is very similar. I live in Boston. We learned of many places for us not to go. Why? Nobody s ever asked. We have been told by our parents and grandparents to stay out of Roxbury, Shirley Ave. area and Mission Hill. And we obey. These are predominantly minority populations. Our Grandparents and parents have passes their barriers to us. The barrier is invisible, but very strong.

In the poem, the wall is a metaphor representing our societies traditional social walls. The neighbor in the poem claims good fences make good neighbors. These are not his words. They are the words of his father. He will not challenge the words of his father. The neighbor avoids conflict by repairing the wall, but he is also blinding himself to possibilities and opportunity. In essence, the man is choosing to remain ignorant. He is described in the poem as old-stone savage . In fact, all of us who hold some sort of pre judgmental thinking are ignorant.

David Hernandez wrote Pigeons in 1991. If his name alone wasn t a give away, he is a Hispanic author and political figure. His work concerns the Hispanic life in America. Pigeons are the spiks of birdland is a very strong comment. Hernandez is using our dislike of the pigeon to show how many do not like the Hispanic American. It is common to dislike the pigeon even though they are birds just like any other. We are usually fond of birds, just not pigeons. He uses pigeons to show the often believed, but hardly deserved clich s surrounding the Hispanic community. The birland is similar to our world. In the poem, Parakeets, Canaries and Parrots are depicted as landing jobs and living in luxurious cages. Pigeons are shewed away. The speaker seems to think the color of a pigeon is similar to the color of a Hispanic person. Both must be colored white to succeed. Doves and White people are looked at as having a better chance at a good life. A claim is also made concerning the accent of a pigeon. The speaker says the recognizable pigeon accent will give them away immediately. No explanation is given as to why this is that way, only that it is.

Society often pretends to care. They build the Hispanic community housing projects. The pigeons are given large wooden cages in the same way. Somebody decided that was sufficient. The speaker blames their traditional poor treatment of Hispanics on the trend to push away problems, ignore them.

Both of these poems reflect societies trend to separate, segregate and ignore problems for no other reason other than that s the way things have always been. There are many things we do without questioning. We all basically obey the social norms. The style of clothes we wear, where we choose to live are decided by social norms. The Mending Wall portrays our tendency to turn a blind eye to what we know is wrong. The way the pigeon coup was built to appease and confine the dirty birds was similar to the neighbors insistence to erect a boundary between he and his neighbor. These are far too common traits among all people. Both of these poems deal with those themes.

These two poems were written on a similar basis, however, one s theme was a bit more broad than the other. Frost s poem tackles all mankind s tendency to behave in the Mending Wall manor. Whereas Hernandez s Pigeons , he is mainly focusing on the Ignorance and Traditional pre judgment toward Hispanics. The structure of the poems was also different. Hernandez poem was written in a unique way and it was structured to emphasize and separate different thoughts.

Regardless of their similarities or differences, each poem stands alone. Mending Wall and Pigeons are Great poems. They also happen to compliment one another greatly. Both urge us to rethink the things we sometimes take for granted.