Robert Frost The Road Not Taken Essay

In reading Frost’s poem in its entirety, I have concluded that “The Road Not Taken” is a symbolic representation of the choices we make in life. This particular narration symbolically led the speaker down a fulfilling road; however, getting to that conclusion is not so simple of a process. The uncertainty of how the outcome of one decision over the other will unfold brings the speaker through a contemplating process of eradication.

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.

The literal scene of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken, is described as a “yellowed wood” (Arp & Johnson, 2009). Use of this description could be that fall is upon the wood or the trees perhaps once white have yellowed with age. Before the traveler is a road split into two different directions, he has no idea where each road leads. In trying to imagine, where each one might lead he tries to “look down each path” (Arp & Johnson, 2009), but to no avail as he can only see as far as the

The analysis of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost has been up for debate since the poem release in 1916. It is known to be one of the most frequently misinterpreted poems of all time, and even Robert Frost himself has said the poem is “tricky” to comprehend (The). When analyzing this poem many readers tend to focus only on the last lines of the poem and get caught in a trap of selective-interpretation. Quite a few people after reading Robert Frost’s poem firmly conclude that this poem is about non-conformity and individualism, however, that is not the case. Robert Frost’s poem is meant to be analyzed line by line for a complete interpretation. Readers can conclude that the poem represents making choices in life, but that is not the

In the Robert Frost poem ‘’The Road Not Taken’’ there is a pervasive and in many ways intrinsic sense of journey throughout. In such, the poem explores an aspect associated with human decision, or indecision, relative to the oxymoron, that choices with the least the difference should bear the most indifference, but realistically, carry the most difficulty. This is conveyed through the use of several pivotal techniques. Where the first such instance is the use of an extended metaphor, where the poem as a whole becomes a literary embodiment of something more, the journey of life. The second technique used is the writing style of first person. Where in using this, the reader can depict a clear train of thought from the walker and understand

How can an author effectively convey a universal message to the broadest audience possible? Simple. The author must simply create a completely impartial narrator, devoid of sex, status, or age. The Road Not Taken is a poem told by an impartial narrator who has come to a crossroads in his/her life. The crossroads is represented by a forked path that leads through a forest. The setting is also impartial; the forest is anytime and anywhere the reader desires it to be. The narrator is forced to make a life-decision, thus changing the course of his/her life forever. Symbolism and imagery are used effectively to reinforce the main theme of the poem.

The exclamation point after line 13 conveys excitement, but that excitement is severed by his admission in the following lines. ?way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back?(3.14,15). In the final stanza, lines 16-20 the tone of the poem changes completely. This is the only stanza that begins with a new sentence, indicating that it is a stronger break from the previous ideas. The speaker puts himself in a future situation discussing his life. What he states here seems to contradict what he has said earlier. From his future prospective he says that the paths where different and that he did not choose the one most traveled by. Perhaps he will in the future actually believe this and he only wishes that he could choose in the present ?the one less traveled by.?(5.20)

In the poem, Frost indicates that he made the wrong decisions and took the wrong path’s by sarcastically using “making all the differences”.

In the poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, there were many uses of symbolism, imagery, and figurative language throughout the poem. The poem also contains a significant and powerful theme.

In the poem The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, Frost uses imagery, formal diction, a consistent meter and many other literary devices to describe the act of decision-making and how we justify the decisions we have made. Frost also leaves the literal/figurative meaning of the poem up to the reader’s interpretation.

A second example of symbolism in “The Road Not Taken” are the two diverging pathways in the woods. These pathways represent roads in life or paths in life. A path is meant to take a person somewhere. A path is part of a journey and in this case Frost uses these pathways to symbolize the paths that we take on the journey of life. These two examples of symbolism go hand in hand in this poem.

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” has been examined time after time by teachers, professors, students, and even those willing to go even farther for entertainment but many people evaluate the poem in their own ways. There are the scholarly who delve deep into the mysteries of Frost’s poem and their critique containing a broader range of vocabulary. There are also the people who understand the meaning beneath Frost’s poem and seek to educate those who do not understand but by using easier vocabulary. Finally, there is the mainstream culture that uses the poem with their own meaning without properly reading “The Road Not Taken” and analyzing the actual theme of the poem.

Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” describes a traveler facing a choice, he can either choose the road not taken, or he can choose the road most traveled by. He does not know where either road might lead, but in order to continue with his journey, he can pick only one road. He analyses both roads for the possibilities of where each may take him in his journey. Frost's traveler realizes that regret is inevitable. Regardless of his choice, he knows that he will miss the experiences he might have encountered on the road not taken. Frost, uses literary elements, such as Denotation and Connotation, Symbolism, alliteration, consonance, and assonance in order to convey massage.

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

The Road Not Taken is a poem about different paths and choices available in life. In an article by Exploring Poetry, Frost is said to use a metaphor to start his poem. The metaphor of diverging roads.( Exploring Poetry, 2003) In a different article from Exploring Poetry, they state that the poem is arranged in four stanzas with five lines in each stanza. They also say that the rhyme scheme is abaab. (Exploring Poetry, 2003) This poem is said to be like Frost’s life in that he had many options and paths he could have headed down. Although both of his parents died and he had a hard life, he chose the better path. Frost says in the poem, “ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost) The Road Not Taken is definitely symbolic of parts of his life. Frost had many famous poems. Mending Wall is another infamous