According to Dr. Joel Hoomans, "An adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day." People are granted with free will and numerous choices in life. Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken" gives a perfect example of making a choice in one's life and the process someone may go through to making a choice. The poem takes place in the woods with the speaker coming across a fork in the path and only having the option of taking one path over the other. Throughout the four stanzas, the speaker carefully evaluated each path explaining to the reader his perception of both. One path seemingly the most commonly taken route and the other uncharted territory. The overall theme of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is that at some point in everyone's life, people have to make a choice and decide how they want to move forward in life. Robert Frost use of symbolism and metaphors helped further express the theme of his poem.
With the use of symbolism scattered throughout the poem, the speaker is representing a situation in which a choice must be made, much like how people are placed in various situations where they must also make a decision.
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The first metaphor is represented in line one and two, "Two roads diverge in a yellow wood/ And sorry I could not travel both." This is compared to the realization that people don't always get the luxury of a repeat. People get one chance to do something. Much like the speaker only getting to take one path. The second metaphor can be found in the last two lines, line 19 and 20. The speaker says "I took the one last traveled by/ And that has made all the difference. This is a metaphor for realizing the choices we make can have a lasting effect on our lives. Deciding to take a certain path over another can say a lot about who someone is as a
The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost is a piece about a traveler who is walking through the woods and comes to a fork in the road. He contemplates which path to take and eventually takes the road that looks to him as if it is less traveled. In the end, he looks back at his choice regretfully. The message was that sometimes in life people need to make choices, but when they reflect back on the choices made, they might need to justify their choices. The speaker uses the metaphor of having to chose a path to take on a road to having to make a decision in life. Rhyming techniques and metaphors attribute to the meaning of the poem, as well. He uses repetition to convey feeling and restate the message. All of these devices add to the message of the importance of making choices in life.
Life is difficult because no one can be sure if the choice they make will actually lead the outcome they wished for. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, one of the most recognizable poems in American literature, speaks to choices people face in their life. The speaker has to make a right choice for him, that will lead to the outcome of being what he really wants to be. "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost uses symbolism, imagery, personification, and metaphor, to explain its theme that choices made by the one's strong wish of what one really wants to be, will ultimately lead to the desired outcome.
The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost describes the dilemma in decision making, generally in life each individual has countless decisions to make and those decisions lead to new challenges, dilemmas and opportunities. In Frost’s poem, the careful traveler observes the differences of each path, one is bent and covered in undergrowth (Frost 5) and the other is grassy and unworn (Frost 8). In the end he knows he can only choose one of the paths, after much mental debate he picks the road less traveled and is well aware that he will likely never return to experience the other. By examining Frost 's "The Road Not Taken," we get a deeper understanding of
His choice will make changes in his life that he will not be able to take back and he will never again be at that same starting point. The last use of symbolism in the poem is "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." These lines say to me that the writer has led a satisfying life. That he did chose wisely and although it wasn't necessarily an easy life, it was fulfilling for him and he is proud of the choices he made.
In Robert Frost “The Road Not Taken” we can see how many different aspects of life decision making comes in the form of symbolisms. “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood. And sorry I couldn’t not travel both” This showing use how unwilling the character is of not making a right decision, this is centered on how life can come with certain choices one must make but is very unclear on how to. People always want to have everything at once but it is to show that it is impossible to have it all at the same time. The contrast completely with William Stafford “Traveling Through the Dark” where even if a
In the poem it state, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…” [Green Day (1, 2)] This piece of text displays how the narrator is faced with a hard decision and regrets not being able to take both paths. In the text it also states, “ … to where it bent in the undergrowth… it was grassy and wanted tear… I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference,” [Robert Frost (5, 8, 19, 20)] These lines from the text help to show how the narrator looks through all his options, and then takes the lesser taken option. This choice was likely made due to the narrator thinking that he/she might not like the choice that other people made, and will end up regretting it, so after taking the lesser chosen path, the narrator is pleased with his/her decision.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both." (Frost 1) - in life, there are many "paths" or choices; ways one can go in life. He explains that many people go one way, perhaps because others went that same way. "Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear" (Frost 1) In this, Frost is explaining that many people went one way while he wanted to travel the less worn one, because it might hold beautiful views – good experiences that no one else had gotten the chance to learn from. Life, he explains through this metaphor of travel, is full of choices. And going down one path may change ones life. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I- I took the one less traveled by; and it has made all the difference." (Frost 1) Robert Frost continues to teach an important life lesson to readers around the world through this extended metaphor
One of Robert Frost’s most well know works: “The Road Not Taken”, is arguably one of the most controversial and misunderstood poems. By just reading the title, it seems fairly simple to assume that the poem is about making choices. When the speaker is presented the two roads he must make a choice as to which path he will take for he: “Could not travel both” (Line 2). As the speaker looks down both paths as far as he can, he deciphers back and forth from believing that the paths are equal to one path is better over the other. The speaker eventually decides which path to take and he states that his choice: “Has made all the difference” (Line 20). The title and plot lead people to believe that the central theme is about choices and the importance
The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost starts out with the speaker facing a dilemma. He must make a decision about which path to take. Frost utilizes metaphor and tone to develop his theme about having to make decisions in life, whether they be something as major as choosing a career to pursue or something as simple as choosing what movie to see or what to have for dinner. The speaker states, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
An important topic in this piece of poetry is choosing your path. The author is taking himself on a journey, and this poem shows his struggles as he tries to find out what he wants to do and where he wants to go. It shows how choosing your life is not easy because you see a clear path of what other people are doing, but you know that is not who you are. The strongest piece of evidence to support this theory is
Many writers use symbolism to help reveal things or say something important about life in a special way In the poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, the author uses a variety of phrases that contains symbolism. All of this symbolism also leads up to a very common theme that we must usually several times in our lives. First of all, this poem uses a lot of symbolism to reveal many things that also applies to us in our lives. To begin with, Robert Frost describes two (2) similar roads. One thing he says to support his is,"both that morning equally lay/ (/=new line) in leaves no step had trodden black.
In the poem “The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost uses an extended metaphor of two roads to develop the theme of the hard decisions in life. One example of this is, “And be one traveler, long I stood” in (Frost 3). That means that the author is a traveler with a hard decision to make, also meaning he stood for a long period of time thinking about his decision. Another example is “Through as far that passing there, had worry them really about the same.” (Frost 9). One last example is, “Two roads diverged into in a wood and I took the road less traveled by.” (Frost 18.) Meaning, instead of taking the road that everyone else traveled he took the one less traveled. You’re going to have hard decisions in life, but sometimes dare
Each stanza describes the dilemma the speaker is feeling from the anxiousness of having to decide which path to take. The first stanza describes his desire to not have to make a choice. The second stanza dwells on the differences in the paths. By the time of the third
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” both portray weighing of choices in life. The former is about youth and experiencing life and the latter is about old age, or more probably, an old spirit wearied by life. In both poems the speaker is in a critical situation where he has to choose between two paths in life. In “The Road Not taken” the speaker chooses the unconventional approach to the decision making process, thus showing his uniqueness and challenging mentality while in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” the speaker seeks a life without any pain and struggle but at the end, he has to comply with social obligation, which reflects his responsibility towards the society.
Frost shows the readers that it is hard to choose something without knowing what will be the result, thus he wants to try both of the options to decide on something, when he says “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both”. Whole poem is constructed of this metaphor, and every line refers to something in life. In the last part where Frost says, “I took the one less traveled by” he implies the idea that people wish to be different from others, thus they are prone to choose the option which had not been chosen by many other people. Instead of saying that he was having hard time deciding on a thing to do, Frost chose to use the metaphor of a road, which forced the readers to use their imagination to understand the real meaning behind what he