Making and Breaking Boundaries: A CDA of Robert Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’ with Reference to Social Conflict

Abstract

This research endeavors to analyze the impression of making and breaking of boundaries in Frost’s poem Mending Wall (1914) from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Conflicts and disputes prevail where two persons part of a social circle live together. For the removal of such social barrier and in the development of lasting relations, it is necessary to ignore the disagreements among themselves and respect the privacy of the other members of the society. Social privacy and respect are feasible when the ideology of severance is abided by the members and certain physical boundaries are made by removing mental barriers of disagreement over the issue to have the acceptable relation in a social group to avoid the social conflicts in the future. This study at first discusses the ideology of Frost presented in poem mentioned above by employing the Norman Fairclough’s approach to the CDA. In this analytical research qualitative methodology and close reading textual analysis is used to interpret and derive the meanings for the existing clash of thoughts.