The Two Walls in Mending WallIt is arguable that the self-righteous speaker of "Mending Wall" is himself obsessively engaged in wall-building, far more intractably and instinctively engaged than the his cliché-bound neighbor. While the speaker of "Mending Wall" rightly chastises his thoughtless neighbor and is himself much more aware of the power of language for better or worse, he is nevertheless involved, perhaps ironically, in the same real task, the building of the wall, that will achieve the same results and appear no different from its neighbor's contribution despite the narrative it brings. There are different possibilities for irony here, depending on Frost's level of self-awareness. The images of the wall pervade his poetry, as a conscious poetic image and as a psychosexual indicator of control and limitation. That the speaker is the one who calls the neighbor to repair the wall is vitally important, then, but it is not clear that Frost intended the speaker to be ironically perceived as a hypocrite. The simple explanation, that the speaker acts out of a sense of inevitability, knowing the habits of his neighbor, seems barely sufficient given the contextual symbolism of the wall in Frost's poem; the psychological explanation associated with this version might suggest that Frost's conscious intent was subverted by his unconscious need for walls. So, while Frost may not intend the speaker to be self-parodic, the reader may judge that there is an ironic discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, both on the part of the speaker and the poet. On an even deeper level there is the possibility that Frost was aware of, considered, and justified his need for barriers. After all, you need something to push against. In this case, the poem may be entirely devoid of irony, for while both men are engaged in the same task, each brings a different narrative to it, the one limited to a thoughtless cliché, the other philosophically enriched..