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M4A1 Writing Assignment About Poetry: Mending Walls

Essay Instructions:

INSTRUCTIONS Writing about Poetry In this week’s short writing assignment you will be writing about the theme of a famous Robert Frost poem. Read Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Mending Wall” and answer the following pre-writing questions to gather information and support for your essay. Frost writes the poem as a blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) monologue. He establishes the speaker as one who questions why he and his neighbor (from over the hill) continue to rebuild the stone wall establishing the boundary between their lands when the effort seems futile. 1. The speaker of the poem acknowledges several reasons for not having a wall. List the reasons he offers. 2. speaker is imaginative and tries to turn the task of repairing the stone wall into a game. How does his neighbor respond? 3. Why does the speaker compare his neighbor to a “stone savage armed’? 4. does the speaker seem willing to continue the custom of repairing the wall in spite of his recognition that walls are impermanent? 5. What does the poem suggest about human control of nature? How do the speaker and his neighbor represent two attitudes toward nature? 6. Where do you find humor in the poem? 7. Do you think the speaker finds his neighbor frustrating or funny or difficult to understand? After answering the above questions about Robert Frost’s poem “The Mending Wall”, re-read the poem and use the information gathered in responding to the questions as your content for a short essay. Choose one of the following three options as the topic for a 500-750 word essay in which you establish paragraph topics and develop your topics through explanations and offering supporting evidence through: quotation, paraphrases, and/or brief summaries. Do not conduct any outside reading for this assignment. A. Explain and give evidence to support your claim that the speaker agrees that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.” B. Write an essay to show that by recognizing the limits of human control of nature, or other people, or time the speaker can keep his perspective and avoid hardening into a “Stone age savage” continuing a tradition without reflecting on it. C. Write an essay to show that traditions can both promote and restrict “neighborliness.”

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Mending Walls
Name
Institution
Date
Question one
The speaker finds it a challenge to have the walls built due to the following reasons; firstly, he claims that there are no cows to be contained within those walls. Secondly, the speaker maintains that only pine trees and apples exist in both neighborhoods. Thirdly, the speaker does not believe in the walls for the sake of walls citing that it is an adage.
Question two
The neighbor responds to the speaker’s game of repairing the walls citing that good fence makes good neighbors. Despite the falling off the walls, the neighbor still insists on building the superfluous walls.
Question three
The speaker compares his neighbor to a “stone savage armed” because the wall building action seems ancient and traditional. Additionally, the neighbor hoists and transports a boulder that essentially illustrates the nature of his ancient belonging.
Question four
Despite the challenges of nature toward the bringing down of the walls, the neighbor’s willingness to continue with the custom does not stop at any cost. The actual sense as brought out by his old-fashioned mentality seems binding to his customs.
Question five
Frost presents an undisputable fact that nature can destroy the wall beyond which the neighbor can repair. It is evident in action as the neighbor walks along the walls and realizes some damages caused by nature. Both the speaker and the neighbor have a skeptical attitude towards the impact of nature on the walls.
Question six
Frost uses humor in the poem when he points out the occasions where the speaker walks along the wall to repair the damage caused by the hunter while at the same time in some occasions contradicts the neighbor on building the walls. The speaker seems to be more concerned about the wall building though he condemns it as a barrier to the neighborhood.
Question seven
The speaker finds his neighbor funny citing that he clings to the old traditions despite having the right argument that the walls are not necessary. This argument is revealed from the neighbor's point of view "Good fences can make good neighbors."
Essay
Tradition can both promote and restrict "neighborliness."
The poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost is the second of his books of poetry after “North of Boston” that he published in England, 1915. During his time in England where he lived with his family, Frost became homesick for the firm he had in New Hampshire during 1900 to 1909. He gives a backg...
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