Isolation Versus Community in Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" and Robert Frost's "Mending Wall."

One of the major issues influencing American modernist writers was the increasing urbanization of the country. People were thrown together in the new large cities in ways they had never been before. No longer was it feasible to live an isolated life the way previous generations had done. Inexorably, people were being forced to form communities and many were understandably resistant to the consequences. This conflict of isolation versus community forms a central theme in both Wharton's "The Other Two" and Frost's "Mending Wall."

The main character of "The Other Two" is Mr. Waythorn (who is apparently so connected to his family name he has no need of a first name, a clear indication of his connection to a more traditional past), a man of "somewhat unstable sensibilities." He sees his home as his sanctuary, a place of shelter from the "layers of pendulous humanity" and crowds which "sweep" him along in the bustling city outside. He's so protective of this sanctuary that when he is initially forced to allow entry to one of his wife's ex-husbands he feels the "instinct of flight" and is filled with a "physical repugnance." Waythorn wants only for his wife to become a part of his oasis, but he fails to account for her past and the connections it implies.

His process of realization is slow, but obvious. He begins to realize that interaction with his wife's former husbands is an unfortunate fact of his marriage, but he's still clinging to the hope that he can maintain the integrity of his haven. As the story says, "It was Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so intolerable." Later, he's even able to dismiss his suspicion that Haskett is attempting to secure a "foothold in the house." He becomes aware of Alice's community, even going so far as to compare himself to a "member of a syndicate." Later on that same page he finally comes to realize that it's his wife's connection with her "community" of ex-husbands that has made her the person he loves so much. Finally, by the end of the story, when not one but both of his wife's former spouses join him in his sanctuary, he's able to accept the situation. When his wife joins the three men in the library, Waythorn is finally able to accept his situation with a laugh.

Waythorn, a man with a clear connection with a more traditional past, wants nothing more than to maintain a private place of escape from the outside world for himself and his wife. This desire for isolation is finally, inexorably, overcome by the "community" of his wife and her ex-husbands. Waythorn finally realizes that there is no place for isolationism in the modern world. Like it or not, he's now part of a community, and at the end of the story he seems to have accepted it.

The clear advantage of prose in illustrating this conflict is the ability to craft specific scenes and actually articulate a character's full thought process. The long passages describing Waythorn's thought process are perfect examples of this. The longer form affords the luxury of recounting the character's exact thought process and paints a clear picture for the reader of the process the character is undergoing.

Frost's tale of two neighbors and their ritual of fence maintenance explores a similar theme. The poet's neighbor is convinced of the value of their wall, and constantly refuses to yield to the poet's questioning of its necessity. The neighbor represents the more traditional, isolationist sensibility. He is constantly quoting his "father's saying" about the virtues of good fences. Like Waythorn, this connection to his family's past suggests an unchanging quality. The poet himself, on the other hand is constantly questioning the traditional values. He dislikes the concept of a fence, unable to see the sense in trying to keep his apple trees from moving against his neighbor's pine trees.

The two men are always described as separate entities until they come together to mend the wall. It's only then that the pronoun "we" enters the poem. The neighbor seeks isolation but the irony of the poem lies in the necessity of forming a community with the poet in order to maintain it. Frost wants us to see that despite our best efforts to remain apart, everyone will be forced to interact with others at some point. It's an inevitable consequence of the new crowded world in which we live.

In poetry, the writer is forced to bring the reader to the same level of understanding as a prose writer, just in a much shorter span. The poet does not have the luxury of long, descriptive passages and therefore must make use of more abstract concepts and metaphorical constructs. There's no time for Frost to show us that the neighbor is mired in tradition with a lengthy scene, instead he merely suggests it by having him repeat a saying he learned from his father. Frost is unable to craft a long, involved tale of a modern isolationist trying to insulate himself from the outside world, instead he uses the simple straightforward metaphor of a stone wall.

Both poetry and prose are effective methods of expressing the theme of isolation versus community. Both genres have their advantages. Prose is able to give us fully-realized characters interacting with a complex world and poetry is able to deliver a potent message in a short span through the use of metaphor and imagery. Both Wharton and Frost have delivered excellent interrogations of a specific theme, though in notably different ways.