This question is missing the options. I've found the complete question online. It is the following:
How does the speaker’s repetition of the neighbor’s cherished belief about the importance of walls (lines 27 and 45) convey the poem’s criticism of an undesirable social pattern?
A. The speaker uses the neighbor as an example of what happens when people are too isolated from one another.
B. The speaker imagines a conversation in which the neighbor openly expresses his hostility toward other people.
C. The speaker suggests that the neighbor thinks of the task of mending as a game to illustrate the neighbor’s belief in strict social rules.
D. The speaker describes the neighbor’s superstitious beliefs about elves in order to characterize him as uncivilized and misguided.
E. The speaker treats the neighbor’s words about fences as evidence of a world view that is closed-minded in general.
Answer:
The speaker's repetition of the neighbor's cherished beliefs show:
E. The speaker treats the neighbor’s words about fences as evidence of a world view that is closed-minded in general.
Explanation:
"Mending Wall" is a poem by Robert Frost in which the speaker and his neighbor are rebuilding a wall that separates their properties. The speaker does not see that there is a good reason for having that wall. He does not understand what is there that needs to be separated. Not having a wall does not make them impolite or uncivil. He will not trespass, nor will his neighbor.
His neighbor, on the other hand, only replies "Good fences make good neighbors" over and over again. He does not offer the speaker an explanation, a justification for the wall. He has learned that expression from his father, and he repeats it as if it is the truest of truths. The speaker wonders if he can "put a notion in his head," if he can open his neighbor's mind. But that seems to be impossible. The neighbor believes in the wall, in the necessity for its existence.
