Analyzing Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’
“Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.”
Lyman Abbott
In the poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ Robert Frost toys with the ideas of innocence and experience that one can relate to in his or her own life by the choices they have to make in their day to day lives. Like his other works that explore fundamental questions of existence, depicting the loneliness of an individual in an indifferent universe, the poem ‘The road not taken’ explores a man’s uncertainty to choose from two paths that lay before him. In the following article I shall present a close analysis of Frost’s poem and how it can relate to one’s life.
Most people have come across a time where they have to make a decision between two figurative roads. Not sure where to go and unaided, they might choose the road that would take them to the place where they want to go or the road that takes us somewhere new, but either way the path we choose takes us to where we are now. In life situations where we have to choose from different metaphorical paths such as which college to join, which house to buy, etc. there exists a road we took that got us where we are and a metaphorical road not taken. While making such decisions we come across the big question of whether to take the well beaten path or be non-conformists and take the less travelled route. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is all about these quandaries present in every person’s life.
The poem is very simply articulated with the material is arranged in 4 quintains with a rhythm scheme of ABAAB in each quintain.
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; In a literal manner the first paragraph explains the poet’s situation where the poet while travelling through a yellowwood forest, encounters two roads and expresses sorrow at the inability to travel both of them. The poet then stands debating on which road to take as he looks closely at one of the roads that bent in the undergrowth. Metaphorically, just as the yellowwood forests are found rarely, the poet encounters a rare situation with only two possible paths that he can take. Like an inexperienced person making a choice between two career options that warrants a close examination of both options, Frost stands for long inspecting one of the roads or one of his choices.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

The poet then, inexperienced starts walking on the other road, that according to the poem looked the same but was grassy , meaning it wasn’t chosen by many and wanted wear and held better claim. However while travelling the road, he ponders that it was worn the same. The situation can be turned into a present day situation in the same way as the person after analyzing his career options starts working and realizes that the option that he chose for it wasn’t very sought after and held better claim was in reality just as lucrative as his other. The stanza carries various contradictions in view due to the gain of experience from innocence. The poet at first not knowing about the paths starts travelling on what appeared lucrative but then gains the understanding that it was just the same.
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 on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. In the third stanza the poet still walking on the path he chose is pondering about his choices as to how they both lay with freshly fallen leaves where none had travelled, and exclaims that he kept the first for another day, excited in his belief that none had travelled the road he took, he proclaims that he kept the other road for another day shows his childlike nature, but the following contradicting lines show experience where he admits knowing that as way leads to way he would ever be able to come back. The paragraph is very contradicting in its beliefs but finalizes the poet’s choice just like in the metaphorical world we cannot change the choices we make.
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.

The term ‘Sigh’ used by the poet acts an indicator of gained experience as his childlike enthusiasm comes to an end and he can see what lies in store for him. Thus the concluding paragraph presents the poet’s thoughts as he has travelled further into the path he chose as he is hit by the realization that the path he took was the one less travelled by and he postulates that he would be telling that ages and ages hence that he took the path less travelled by and that has made all the difference just like ten years after we have had made the choice of our prospective career we realize that it has made all the difference. In conclusion, Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ contrasts the journey of life with the journey through a forest with paths like the choices we encounter. Big or small, it doesn’t matter as to what the choices are, but whatever choice we make makes a difference as to where we are headed without an option to turn back. We understand that the choice that we make grants us experience regardless of it being the road less travelled by or not.

Bibliography
Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." Literature: The Human Experience Abcarian et al. Bedford St.Martins, 2015. Pg 137. Print.