| Description |
In this paper, I will examine several of the dialogue poems which portray the typically unhappy Frostian marriage, as well as two dialogues that escape the pattern of miscommunication and misunderstanding. I will trace the common stereotypes of men and women in the poems, both as they are developed in the dialogues themselves and as Frost elaborates upon them in other poems that are not apparently gender-related. Beginning with "Mending Wall," we will see an expanded and slightly different version of the story in "A Time to Talk," a version which shows conversation between neighbors for the complicated (and often unsatisfactory) exchange that it is. The unnecessary wall, the traded cliches, and the too-quick assumptions about the neighbor's character and intelligence foreshadow much of the action in the gender dialogues--I think it no coincidence that "Mending Wall" opens North of Boston, the book in which many of the dialogues are found. |
