Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

The poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, is about a man walking in the woods, and he comes upon a fork in the road. He is forced to choose on path. The speaker is not able to see down the path. He chooses the path that seems to have been walked on before. At the end of the poem, the speaker is reflecting on his decision. He regrets the path he took and says that in the future he tell the story as if he took the path less taken. This poem is an extended metaphor. The message of the poem is that in life someone must make choices in which he or she doesn’t know what will come of it. In the future he or she will look back on that choice and enjambment. Within the poem, Robert Frost uses repetition and uses rhyme scheme to enhance the poetry. These devices help to illustrate the meaning of the poem that Robert Frost is trying to get across to the reader.

Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken is one of his most adored and familiar poems. It is made up of four stanzas of five lines each, with each line having between eight and ten syllables in a roughly iambic rhythm; the lines in each stanza rhyme in an ABAAB pattern. The poem follows the thoughts of the speaker as he considers how the choice he must make now will look to him in the future. While the poem may appear simple at first glance, looking specifically through the lenses of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition the reader may gain a new appreciation of the poem and the layers of meaning it contains.

In the poem “The Road Not Taken,” Frost compares two roads to the choices people make daily between themselves. As it represents each decision being made, it also involves the new paths they will create and develop throughout the journey. The first stanza reveals that “two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both” (Arp, 725). In other words, the poem explains how the flow of people’s lives depends on certain decisions they make. To further elaborate, in the real world, people are faced with questions every day that direct them to various changes in

The second line, “…sorry I could not have traveled both” (line 2) expresses the curiosity to explore several possibilities in life. It also forms a sense of regret at not knowing what could lie ahead on the un-chosen path and the speaker’s limitation to one lifetime. When Frost says, “And be one traveler…” (line 3) it is obvious that speaker can not travel down both paths. He realizes that he needs to make a choice and pick one path over the other. The speaker’s procrastination and the difficulty in predicting the outcome of the decision he needs to make is shown when he, “…stood And looked down one as far as I could” (line3-4). Both roads lead to the unknown, “To where it bent in the undergrowth” (line 5), as do many choices in life. This is a metaphor to our inability to predict the future, and the fact that regardless what road is chosen it will not be free of obstacles.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a very diverse and interesting poem. Frost's poem holds a great deal of irony (A Strangeness in Common: Trespass, Drift, and Extravagance in Robert Frost, 2017). Initially reading the poem one would agree with the popular conception that this poem is about choosing one path over the other. However, there are several indications within the poem that suggest otherwise. For example, "And both that morning equally lay (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012)."

In Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” literary devices create meaning. The theme of this poem is making choices and is shown through the author’s use of symbolism, imagery, and metaphors. The main symbol in this poem is the two paths that the speaker arrives at during his walk. These paths are described two times in this poem, once at the beginning and once at the end, using the line, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. The fork in the path symbolizes the choices you have to make in life.

Interpretation of The Road Not Taken For many years “The Road Not Taken” has been misinterpreted from the irony Frost’s tone takes in this poem. This is one of Frost’s earlier poems. The way Frost words this poem makes people feel like there is a hidden life lesson within it. After doing the literal paraphrase I noticed that Frost plays up on the fact that the reader’s will feel like there was a hidden message within his poem so he continues with the tone and idea of building up his decision. Frost decides to build up the excitement and experience years after he “took the one less traveled by” to make it seem as if that was the reason he is where he is today.

    Also in the third stanza Frost hopes he can come back on day and choose the other path some day. “Oh, I kept the first for another day!”. Frost is excited about having the opportunity to come back and explore the other path later in his life. But later in the third stanza Frost realizes that he probably will never have the opportunity to come back, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”. One path will lead to another and he will never have the opportunity to came back to the same path and make a different decision. This adds to the metaphor that the path is a symbol for Frost’s life. In life once a decision is made, that decision will affect life forever, and this is the conclusion that Frost has come

Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” centers around the choice to be made when coming across a fork in the road. By use of an extended metaphor in choosing one road over the other, Frost reveals the complexities and importance of making choices in life.

Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” describes a traveler faced with a choice of which one of two roads to travel. He knows not where either road might lead. In order to continue on his journey, he can pick only one road. He scrutinizes both roads for the possibilities of where they may take him in his travels. 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.

The start of all decision-making is to narrow choices to the most viable ones. Frost wants a decision maker to look at each choice and see what kind of road that decision will take. Trying to decide which path he wants to go down, the speaker carefully considers his choices and imagines what it would be like taking each one of the paths. “And looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth;” (“Road” 4-5) Just like the path is described covered in undergrowth we can only see the consequences of our choices very short term into our

The beginning of Frost poem talks about the coming to the diverging roads. This is simple enough. “And sorry I could not travel both;”. Frost wants to travel both roads so he could decide which to take. This is the same experience everyone has when faced with a

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

Both poems picture a critical situation where a person has to choose between two paths in life. In the poem, The Road Not Taken, Frost discusses a person who comes across an intersection or a fork in the road and he has to choose which way to follow. The road metaphorical symbolized the choices of life. He scrutinizes the similarities and differences of the two roads and finally chooses to follow “the road less traveled”. For Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, while Frost was mesmerized by the beauty of the village lifestyle, he ponders which way to go between escaping the hustle and bustle of the city and continuing on with his busy life. Eventually, he chooses to faithfully comply with his current life and duties. Though the poems were set in different background, they both consist of the same major theme, which is decision-making in life.

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