Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm:
For a change, I won’t leave this as an exercise for the reader. Two crucial pieces: a pun on fence — a barrier or someone who sells stolen goods — and an allusion to Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, which ends with the quotation “Good fences make good neighbors”.
![“Mending Wall”](http://arnoldzwicky.s3.amazonaws.com/MGGFences.jpg">){kind=link}
February 15, 2014 at 9:25 am |
The whole strip gave me a fence.
February 16, 2014 at 11:38 am |
I’m not sure that every reference to the old proverb “good fences make good neighbors” should be seen as a reference to Frost, just because Frost quoted it in his poem. Incidentally, note that “Mending Wall” actually would make less sense if “good fences make good neighbors” were made up, rather than an existing proverb. The old farmer quotes it, and the Frostian narrator questions its applicability. In any case, it is well-documented that the proverb was around before Frost.
February 17, 2014 at 11:01 am |
The question here is not the ultimate source of the proverb, but the cultural resource that the cartoon is tapping from its audience, which I think is surely Frost.
February 17, 2014 at 11:44 am
There do seem to be quite a few people who know the proverb only from the poem. However, it is not necessary to know the poem to be familiar with the proverb, and the cartoon makes no allusion to the poem beyond the proverb.