Bounderies and Borders, Good or Bad?

Limiting, dividing, and separating, borders and boundaries are known for keeping people apart. Not many think of borders or boundaries in a positive light, only under the circumstance they are removed. If boundaries only exist under negative situations, then why are they present everywhere in the world? Why do people put up so many boundaries both tangible and invisible? There are many possible answers to this question, one that is discussed in not only Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, but also Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Slam, Dunk, & Hook,” Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Game,” and Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In all four literary works the possible answer for why people put up boundaries or borders in life is that they are trying to keep something out, hence filtering what is allowed or who is allowed into their lives. But while doing so, as the authors point out, people also filter out things or people which they need in their lives, but are too busy constructing these borders to realize that in the process they are actually doing more harm than good.
“Good fences make good neighbors,” a line repeated by the neighbor in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”, makes one wonder if the statement is true. Does good fences make good neighbors? And if so why? While in this situation a fence or boundary between two neighbors is primarily used for privacy, could there not be more behind it? Frost remarks shortly after, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense.” Here Frost blatantly points out that sometimes a wall, border, or in this case a fence can retain good, such as privacy, but also “create offense.” Maybe without the fence as Frost implies, he could better understand his neighbor and get to know who inhabits the house next door, which may be better than having complete privacy. For what is more important to Frost is not the actual fence, but the reasoning for its existence, what is the neighbor trying to keep him out, or what is he trying to keep in?
While Frost gives an example of a border in the tangible sense, for Yusef Komunyakkaa borders can also be invisible. Similar to tangible borders, invisible borders can also be used as a tool to filter what people allow into their lives, sometimes neglecting important things that they may need. In the poem “Slam, Dunk & Hook,” Komunyakaa describes the skill, desire, and dedication of the character Sonny Boy, in the game of basketball. With great agility Sonny Boy dominates the game of basketball, but for him basketball is more than a game, it’s a way to escape. Komunyakka remarks, “When Sonny Boy’s mama died he played nonstop all day, so hard our backboard splintered.” For Sonny Boy his life is filled of borders. He only allows basketball to be in his life, thus only focusing on it, hoping it would allow him to escape from the reality of his loss. But while setting up this borders, he may also be doing more harm, for how is he to grieve the loss of his mother if he will not even confront it?
Sometimes borders or boundaries are created without them being intentional. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s poem “The Game,” a child named Cruz lives a life full of boundaries that were created because she was born a humpbacked girl. But she herself also creates invisible boundaries, escaping to her own world where she lives without her disability. Cofer explains how she enjoyed playing house where “..she laughed delighted at my inventions, lost in the game, until it started getting too late to play pretend.” Cruz set up a border between reality and “pretend” escaping to the pretend where her disability did not exist.
Boundaries or borders in the sense of “stretched-out use of territory” in cities are created unintentionally, but also tend to create more harm than filtering out what people do not want. In Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs describes borders as “destructive” in cities, being as they create separation and division, causing a limit on diversity. Jacobs also adds on the topic of division, “This is serious, because literal and continuous mingling of people, present because of different purposes, is the only devise that keeps streets safe. It is the only device that cultivates secondary diversity.” Not only do boundaries limit diversity and mingling of city dwellers, but is also causes a safety issue as well.
For many boundaries and borders at first may seem like a good idea, allowing people to choose what they want and what they do not want present in their lives. But people get too caught up in defending and constructing their boundaries that they remain unaware of what they are keeping out of their lives.