Separation can be defined as a line or point that divides two things. Separation can be both physical and emotional. In all the works we have read separation could be one of the themes. In each poem there is a force separating two things from each other.
In the “Mending Wall”, by Robert Frost there is a physical boundary that separates the two neighbors. Every spring two neighbors fix a wall that separates their properties from each other. The speaker is the one that initiates the fixing of the wall but halfway through the poem he wonders why they are even fixing the wall. He wonders “what he is walling in or walling out” and if there even is a purpose for the wall. They may have been fixing the wall for so many years that now it has become tradition and tradition is hard to change. This is shown in The Whale Rider, by Witi Ihimaera and the traditions that Koro had about men women and how hard it was for him to change his beliefs.
In the poems “Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, by Yusef Komunyakaa there is a boundary between the basketball court and reality. In this poem Sonny Boy plays basketball extra hard ever since his mother had died. He uses basketball to disguise the reality of his mother’s death and it keeps his mind off what is really happening in his life. The poem “The Game”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer is another example of an emotional boundary. It is about a girl who has a humpback. She is not accepted by her family because of this deformity. When the child named Cruz goes outside and plays she would always play her favorite game, “family”. She would use this to separate the reality of her life with the pretend life she had when she played “family”.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs it describes boundaries that separate different areas of a city. In these pages it shows how hard it is to overcome a boundary. The boundary between one part of town and another may be vast because separation may be hard to change. This is seen in all of these works. It’s hard to change your boundaries whether they are emotional or physical.