Robert Frost Poetry Emotional Barriers
Robert Frost Poetry - Emotional BarriersEmotional Barriers
We all deal with our emotions in different ways.
Some of us shout them out and some of us bottle
them in. Whatever you choose to do is okay, as
long as it helps you. Robert Frost chooses to
touch on different ways of how he might react in
an emotional situation in his three poems:
“Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” and
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Each poem
deals with his emotions whether it is the barrier
walls that he keeps between himself and other, the
decisions he has to make or the how he chooses to
deal with all of these problems. When I read these
three poems, it forced me to think about my own
emotions and what I would do in each of these
situations.
We have things that we don’t want others to see.
Secrets that we don’t want to share, misfortunes
and wrongdoings that we are too ashamed to speak
about. These are only a few of the many reasons
that we all keep emotional walls or barriers up.
They are there for our protection, or so we think.
We believe that by keeping people away, they can
not hurt us. This is true, but when we push them
away, what are we missing? Robert Frost
contemplates this exact issue in his poem “Mending
Wall.” The speaker in this poem doesn’t know for
sure whether of not he wants to keep this wall up
between himself and his neighbor.
“…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 offense.”
He is worried about what he will miss by keeping
the wall up, yet he continues to help his neighbor
rebuild it. We all have times like this in our
lives. In a perfect world we would like to keep
our walls down and let everyone in, but we can’t,
because we are still to scared to be able to trust
each other. Emotionally, it is much easier to live
and not get hurt by keeping people at a certain
distance. You can stop them from coming to close.
If you let them past your wall, you’re letting
them into your mind. You’re telling them all your
secrets. Telling them about your past. You’re
inviting them in. This is wonderful at first, but
it leaves you wide open and vulnerable.
Unfortunately, this is the way I have chosen to
see it. I have been hurt too many times for me to
want to let anyone else in. This is not a good way
to live your life, but it’s the only way that
seems to keep me safe. It’s kind of like climbing
a ladder to reach a prize. The higher you climb,
the closer to the prize, but you also have a much
bigger chance of falling. The less you climb the
less chance of getting hurt. I have climbed this
ladder one too many times, and each of them I have
fallen off right when I reach the top. This is why
I have chosen to keep my wall up; I’m just tired
of falling.
Making this decision wasn’t easy. In fact, it is
almost never...
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