Robert Frost expresses his disdain for fences in “Mending Wall’ that seem to constrain a person’s world view and hem them in. In a narrow sense, “good fences make good neighbors”. The son also accepts the father’s constraining world view refusing to branch out… The constrained sense of space reflects the person’s narrow-minded outlook. there is no practical use for fences, because “here there are no cows”. Frost associates such inwardness with “darkness” and an “old-stone savage mindset”. In contrast, the narrator rails against fences because it divides people; it restricts their capacity to imagine – “I could say ‘Elves’ to him – his sense of freedom.
In contrast, the narrator wishes to transform his world into a place of wide open space that is not restricted by narrow boundaries between neighbours. He states, “before I bult a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out”. He wants to feel more connected and part of the place without the constriction of fences.
Please see: The English Works Short Classics Anthology