Robert Frost: a different outl
This has got to be among the best-known, most-often-misunderstood poems on the planet. It seems as if "The Road Not Taken" gets memorized without really being read. This is a type of poem that needs to be read with accuracy, not imagination. If you read the poem and really try to understand the meaning of each word, its plain to see what the poem is talking about. It seems to me that most people believe the poem is about how a man took a path in life that not many people take, and has had a great life because of it. When you break it down and read the lines separately, its easy to understand what the poem is really about - how you will always wonder what could have been.In line 9, of the two roads the poem reads "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." In fact, both roads "that morning lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." Meaning: Neither of the roads is less traveled by. I do not believe the poem is about how the man chose the right path; instead I believe it is about how he will always wonder what would have happened had he taken a different route. Ironic as it is, this is also a poem infused with the expectation of regret. Its title is not "The Road Less Trav
Our route is, therefore, determined by a buildup of choice and chance, and it is impossible to separate the two. Paths in the woods and forks in roads are easily recognized as metaphors for a persons life, more particular a persons decisions, crises and dilemmas. But the nature of the decision is such that there is no right path - just the chosen path and the other path. The tone is obvious: "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence. The character will never know what could have been, he will always wonder about decisions that he could have changed and other things he could have accomplished. Somewhere in the back of his mind will always be the image of yellow woods and two equally leafy paths. I stuck to my guns, took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. In the last lines of the poem, the "sigh" is critical. The speaker will not, in his old age, simply talk to his grandchildren and say, "Do what I did, kiddies. This whole poem deals with when the character will look back at the decisions he had to make, and he will see them all the same: "And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. Next, the poem seems more concerned with the question of how the present (yellow woods, grassy roads covered in fallen leaves) will look from a future viewing-point. In one way it also symbolizes that we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what we are choosing between. It does not say, "When you come to a fork in the road, study the footprints and take the road less traveled by".
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Acceptance Essays
