The Road Not Taken
On the surface "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a poem about a man who is on a journey and comes to a fork in the road. He is faced with what seems to be a very casual decision about which way to go on his stroll in the woods. Should he go to the right or to the left? Is there a difference? In reality, the poem represents everything from which car to purchase to the more impacting decisions that people have to make at life's forks in the roads they travel. While some of these decisions may seem insignificant at the time, they all have permanent, lasting affects. Frost doesn't mess around with preliminaries. Right away he places himself at a fork in the road. The first line, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood", has Frost confronted with two seemingly good choices. The first choice seems pleasant enough, "And looked down one as far as I could; To where it bent in the undergrowth" ( lines 4 & 5) but is ordinary with no distinguishing features. The second choice is more appealing, "And have perhaps the better claim" (line 7), "Because it was more grassy and wanted wear" (line 8). Although Frost doesn't regret his choice, he does wonder what the other road hol
"And both that morning equally lay; In leaves no step had trodden black" (lines 11 & 12) shows that there is not always a beaten path to follow, sometimes instincts are needed to make these decisions. "Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by" (lines 18 & 19) alludes to Frost taking the road that appealed most to him instead of the one that seems like the more mainstream. The reader is reminded of the finality of the decisions he makes while traveling down life's highways and byways. The meter is mixed from one line to the next but somehow the number of syllables works out and the poem still flows very smooth and is an easy read. It doesn't stop and start and stop and start. Frost does a great job of placing the reader in the story. This, combined with the meter, give the poem a natural rhythm that cannot be seen with the eye, it is heard when the poem is read out loud. The traveler is left wondering about the other road, as is Frost. ds for him, "I shall be telling this with a sigh" (line 16). Emphasis is placed on different syllables to reinforce the meaning of the poem. Frost uses end rhyme throughout the poem "wood, stood, could", and "both, undergrowth" in the first stanza. Every road will have a fork in it and on this road called life there is no turning back to travel the road not taken. The sense that "The Road Not Taken" leaves the reader with is that the reader is the one on the road, having to make the decision himself. He is also telling us that most of the decisions people make have to be done on their own, with little help from others.
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