Kia Wells
Eng 102
20 September 2013
“The Road Not Taken” By Robert Frost
The poem “The Road Not taken by Robert Frost was published back in the year of 1916.The poem was printed in Italics and consists of 4 stanzas. This poem is also considered and known to be one of Robert Frost’s most popular poems. In this essay I will explore The Road Not Taken. I try to fully understand if Frost felt disappointment in his life due to certain decisions that are made. Stanza four of the poem is where the tone of the poem is made clear just from a “sigh” the poet makes which will be further explored during the essay. The setting of the poem is during the fall season. That is understood from the first stanza and the first line of the poem which
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In stanza three the poet allows the reader to know the time of day he is traveling the roads. The poem stated “And both that morning equally lay, in leaves no step had trodden black”. We now know it is morning time and the road is covered in leaves. The leaves turned black from steps.
As the poem continues, Stanza four is where the entire tone of the poem is made clear. The poet wrote “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence”. A sigh can be understood as a good or bad. Or happy or sad. It is safe to assume that the tone is a rather disappointing one or a sign of regret. From the beginning of the poem the poet is talking about which road to take and it clearly shows the difficulty of making a decision. The pathos of this poem is obviously in stanza four when the poet makes a sigh. The reader will automatically have sympathy for the poet making the reader wish there was something they can do to make things better.
Overall, in the poem “The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost established a disappointing or negative tone. It shows how life’s decisions can be hard and it will create depression, regret and sometimes an emotional strain. Being that the title of the poem is “The Road Not taken and not “The Road Taken” is a hint on life and decisions. If you go down one road, you may never know what could’ve been from the other road. Robert Frost also implies the fact that he is reflecting back on the road
Robert Frosts “The Road Not Taken” is more symbolic of a choice one must make in their life in attempt to foresee the outcome before reaching the end, than it is about choosing the right path in the woods.
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
You can tell that in the poem the season is fall because of the color of the wood. In the fall the color of the wood turns yellow which indicates that the poem takes place in the fall. The season’s representations of what time frame a person life is in. How spring represents how someone is at that kid stage of their lives and how they are getting ready to bloom into their personalities. Summer shows how people are at the fun stage of their lives. That teenage to adult hood part of life. Winter is that time of life when all the excitement has went away, kind of like the years a person is elderly. Here is a man that has had many outcomes from the decision he had made in life, so he understands how important it is to it is to make a choice and live with whatever comes after making the choices. In lines 11-12 the speakers says “And both that morning equally lay, “In leaves no step had trodden black”. When he says the leaves haven’t been trodden black indicates that the leaves haven’t been crushed from people stepping on them. So this means he was the only that have been on that
“The Road Not Taken” written by Robert Frost uses several poetic devices such as imagery and personification to emphasize how indecisive Frost is about his decision on which road he should take. “The Road Not Taken” is about how the narrator chooses a path that he was once confused and worried about but over time become content with his final decision.
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.
Robert Frost went from an unstable farmer aspiring to be a poet to a celebrated American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. In his poem “The Road Not Taken”, he writes about the hard choices that people have to make in their lives. Robert uses extended metaphors and symbolism to show the uncertainty and psychological chaos people feel while making hard choices.
In this poem, I believe the theme is that you have to jump at an opportunity when you get it, or you may never get that opportunity again. Moving on to the tone of the poem, I believe that it is wistful, and that the speaker might be looking back on his days, and realizing that he taking the other road might have made all of the difference in his life. There is very good diction in this poem, as some words express Frost’s feeling more than other’s would’ve. For example, in the line “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” (1), Frost really emphasizes the two roads separating from each other. In another line “In leaves no step had trodden black” (12), trodden is a more appropriate than another word such as crushed or pulverized, because it is the past form of trod, or to step in something, and gives an image of human feet stepping on the freshly fallen leaves.
?The Road Not Taken? (1916) tells of someone faced with two of life?s decisions however only one can be chosen. Whichever road is taken will be final and will determine the direction that their life takes. Frost drives this poem by a calm and collective narrative, spoken by the traveler of the diverged roads. Who is speaking with himself trying to convince himself of which road is the better choice. Frost wrote this poem using standard, modern language.
In the poem “The Road Not Taken”, the speaker is burdened because of a decision he has to make; which path is best to travel down. He has to choose which passage is best to take but it proves to be more difficult than he imagined. After looking as far down one can, the speaker decides on the latter because it appears “...grassy and wanted wear…”, even though the poem later describes both as equally worn (R.Frost). In this poem Robert Frost displays several literary elements throughout its entirety. Conflict/tone, symbolism/character(s), and imagery/settling are the three main devices used.
Initially, the first significant thing about the poem comes from its title “The Road Not Taken”, which presumably refers to an unused option. In the first stanza, the speaker reaches a fork in the road while walking through the “yellow wood” (line 1) and wishes that he could travel both routes but knows it is impractical. The emphasis of uncertainty of which path to take suggests that the road is symbolic. The way the speaker compares and contemplates both paths with hesitation implies that the road is a metaphor for his life. In the first two stanzas, the tone is reflective, contemplative and indecisive as the speaker considers the two paths, “long I stood” (3). Although the speaker doesn’t tell us too much about himself, we know he is conflicted and facing a big
A first look at The Road Not Taken shows the narrator’s cheery story of going against the flow of society and deciding to take the path that the narrator wants. Despite the pessimistic outlook on life, Frost’s poems emit life’s reality. Robert Frost’s outlook on life is truthful and not a fantasy.
In the ending of the poem, regret is displayed after realizing the wrong choices were made.
The poem titled "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is about a man reflecting on a choice he once made. While the outcome of this choice is not implied to be positive or negative the speaker notes that the choice in itself and the consequences of that choice have made a huge difference in the way his life has unfolded.
The two roads represent an extended metaphor. When Frost writes “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both(lines 1&2),” he is not talking about a literal road. When the road splits, this represents the choices we have in life and the important decisions we have to make. You have to decide which road to travel, similarly to when you have to make a decision on which choice you are going to make. In addition, In Line 6, the speaker in the poem “took the other , as just as fair.” This is a metaphor for thinking about all options before making a decision, and not just going with the flow. The speaker doesn’t choose the more often lay used road even though it seems like everyone else did. People must think about the consequences for each decision and really lay out all possible options before finally coming to a decision. Transition, Autumn and the woods are used as a metaphor. At the beginning of the poem, the woods are yellow. This represents the beginning of fall.(line 1) Fall represents growing older. As a person ages, they are faced with making many decisions. These choices symbolize coming of age, and are a metaphor for the decisions of
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.