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The Road Not Taken Analysis

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Submitted By bwhittak
Words 780
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Sarah K. McAfee
May 8, 2008
English 151-15

The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, tells a quick story about a lone traveler who arrives at the end of a path leading to a fork road. Confused about which road to take, the traveler speaks figuratively about how each path looks and in the end decides to take the path he calls “less traveled by” (line 19). Each person in life comes across crossroads where he or she has to choose which path leads to a better future. The reader can take what Frost wrote and interpret that this poem represents that decision that we eventually have to make. One of the major themes of this poem is “life’s decisions” because the author creates a scenario where people have to make a decision of which road to take in life. The poem’s theme is “life’s decisions” because in the poem the traveler arrives at a fork in the road and has to choose the path to take to get to his destination. In life, we also have to make that decision. This could be Frost’s interpretation of someone who is approaching this kind of scenario . The first stanza of the poem states: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth” –Robert Frost
This stanza is describing the thinking process of the person who has to make his or her decision on which path to take. The person is trying to figure out how far each path will go but can see no further then what’s in front of him. The second stanza states:
“Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy an wanted wear” (lines 6-8)
The traveler at this point is comparing the appearance of both roads. One road is nice and appears to be the less traveled, well groomed path, while the other looks like it is in bad shape. This could be a comparison to the paths of heaven and hell. In the second half of the poem, the traveler finally decides which path he or she will take. The third stanza states:
“And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” (lines 11-15)
At this point of the poem, the traveler is contemplating whether or not he will be able to return to that path. When making important choices in life usually after making your decision down your chosen path, there is no turning back. Also in the last stanza :
“I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” (lines 16-20)
The traveler finally chooses which path to take and decides to choose the path that is less taken which was the better path for him because he or she does not show any regret in lines 19-20. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is a narrative poem about a traveler pondering about which path to take in a fork road. This poem uses iambic pentameter tetrameter style, and a symbol in the poem would be the forked road that the traveler comes across. In 1915 when Frost first wrote the poem, he returned to America and there had been a decision whether or not to continue being a writer. According to Larry L.Finger, “Frost’s "sigh" in the last stanza of "The Road Not Taken" Assuming the speaker of the poem to be Frost himself, wanted to know whether the sigh meant that he regretted having chosen to be a poet or not.” I was also inquired about this sigh. This poem symbolizes the state he was in when he decided whether or not to continue writing. Since the poem has a happy ending, he feels like he made the right decision for himself, to continue writing.

Works Cited

Finger, Larry L. "Frost's "The Road Not Taken": A 1925 Letter Come to Light." American Literature 50, no. 3 (1978): 478-479 web.
Frost, Robert-The road not taken. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/life.htm
Rukhaya, M.K. “Symbolic Overtones in Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken”.http://m,brighthubeducation.com/homework-help-literature/124076-symbolic-overtones-in-the-road-not-taken

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