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Explanation: "the road not taken" by Richard Frost
Analyze robert frost the road not taken
Analysis of The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost Esq
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Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” (rpt. In Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 10th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2009] 725 presents itself with a traveler that is dissatisfied with the decision that he has to make. A situation of life sometime requires a decision to be made between two things that will have a huge impact in the end. The consequences are not always what we expect.
I will now explain how Frost used literal and figurative techniques to describe a man traveling through the woods and his thoughts on deciding which road to take. Literally, the man appeared to be content with his travels until he reached the fork in the road, and had to make a decision. Figuratively, he is a man who was living his life and became troubled when he was faced with a big decision.
And be one traveler, long I stood
Perhaps the undergrowth is a symbol of his blocked vision of where the road might lead him. The one road may have been full of fun, money, and opportunity, but he could not see the end of it. The undergrowth could also mean that long running vines of greenery that stretched along the road and lead to nowhere.
Frost uses a lot of imagery to inform the reader of the other choices. Both roads had been traveled the same, but had different appearances. The grass could have given the illusion that the road in the second stanza would provide better opportunity. There is a saying, “don’t let the green grass fool you,” meaning although the grass is green, it doesn’t have to be the best choice. The yellow wood could represent that it was time for a change to take place in his life just like when the leaves change color in the fall of the year. From a biblical point of view, a chang...
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... he uses part for the whole in the meaning. For example:
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
In the last stanza the traveler sensed that he may be sharing his decision with someone with possible regret about how he came to a fork in the road in the woods and made a decision that affected the rest of his life. Because of his decision his life is what it has become. Unfortunately, we must live with the decisions that we make in life, and many times we are not able to change them.
In conclusion the traveler made a decision, he chose the road that was less traveled as indicated in line 19. Ironically, it shows that the traveler took a lot of thought into which road was to be chosen. He did not regret making the wrong choice, he was frustrated at not being able to travel both roads.
The poem is set in the fall when the leaves are changing colors and beginning to cover the ground. The speaker of the poem is faced with an unfamiliar fork in the road and is forced to decide which direction he or she must go. As the speaker is deliberating, he is “sorry” he cannot just travel both and it appears to be because the speaker has a fear of picking the wrong one (Frost 2). Although he “looked down one as far as I could” there was no seeing the end (4). Just like in a life, it is possible to have an idea of what will happen and there is no telling which choices will turn out beneficial and which will not. The speaker knows that although the paths are similar the outcome of picking the wrong one could be life changing. Even though he is upset he must trust in himself to know which one would be best for him in the long run.
Fork in a Road "When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra. Everyday we are met with circumstances and with the circumstances comes the decisions we make in order to fulfill our lives and make them meaningful. However, once we make a decision, after we pass that "fork in the road", we need to move on, accepting what we have done, because what has happened has happened and there is nothing we can do to change the past. Such is the case in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken';, and Alistair MacLeod’s short story “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood';. While the persona in Frost’s poem has knowingly come to a dilemma, in contrast, the narrator in MacLeod’s story makes a decision without glancing to the future.
The choices made on an adventure make the journey more important than the destination. In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, a traveler in the poem is faced with two paths which represent two different decisions. The traveler struggles with these two choices, wishing he could just pick both, and if he didn’t like one he could just go back and take the different path. However, when he finally comes to a decision, it makes a huge impact. The speaker realizes this, saying, ”I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” (Frost 20). When he made his choice and picked the one most people wouldn’t make, it changed his life, which makes the journey more important than the destination. The choice he made actually changed the destination ,which means it is more important because it affected the overall outcome.
Frost realizes that had he taken the other road he would not be where he is today. He was adventurous and choose the road that had been traveled the least recently and that one decision changed his life
...eled it until then and it sets up a story to tell everyone if he says he took the road less traveled by (Frost’s Early Poems). One can better understand this if he were to look at this situation like choosing between two degrees to pursue in college. They both may have the same prerequisites and mostly the same classes within the major, but this choice sets the stage for the rest of his life and the story he will tell others and recollect down the road. Through this poem, one can see that Frost is trying to portray that one’s decisions count at the very beginning and will affect one’s life until the end.
In “The Road Not Taken” Frost emphasizes that every person is a traveler choosing the roads to follow on the map of their continuous journey-life. There is never a straight path that leads a person one sole direction in which to head. Regardless of the original message that Robert Frost had intended to convey, “The Road Not Taken” has left me with many different interpretations. Throughout this poem, it is obvious that decisions are not easy to make and each decision will lead you down a different path.
A traveler comes upon "two road deversised in a yellow wood" He is at a cross road point in his life. He is unable to take both paths at once and must make a decision which way he would like to go or how to live his life. He must decide but is remorseful as he states "And sorry I could not travel both". This decision is always difficult to make because it is impossible not to wonder at the cost of taking this path over that one. He can not help but wonder what he will miss if he chooses this road over that one .There is regret before the choice is ever made. He relaxes that in one lifetime it is impossible to travel down both roads and he has a difficult choice to make and is carefully considering his options as well as wondering were each could lead . In attempting to make this decision the traveler "looks down one as far as I could," trying to see the future and were this road might lead. Both roads lead to the unknown and although he tries to see as far as the road stretches he cannot see where it is going to lead. It is the way he chooses that sets him of on his journey of life and determines were he is going.
Frost ties various aspects of roads with decisions, along with the factors and outcomes of it. Each road is symbolic for a possibility, meaning that the road diverging is emblematic for a choice. The usage of this extended metaphor provides a visual for the reader to imagine this intangible concept and expands on the stages and complexity of decision making, such as associating the descriptions of the road with the future. Both paths are “just as fair” as the other, but, much like options, there are subtle differences between them such as one being “grassy and wanted wear.” As the traveler feels sorrow for not being able to go down both paths, he “looked down one as far as I [the traveler] could” only to realize the limitations of his vision.
The first metaphor Frost uses in this poem can actually be found in the first line: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” The two roads splitting in the woods is a metaphor for a choice you must make when presented with two different options. Wherever the speaker’s life has taken him so far, he has come to the point where he must make an important decision to go any further (Schmoop). The second metaphor Frost uses can be found in lines four and five: “And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth.” Looking down the road is a metaphor for the future; when making a decision, we can only predict so much. Just like how the speaker can only see the path in the woods for so far we can only see the consequences of our decision in the near future. A third metaphor can be found in lines 13 through 15: “ Oh, I kept the first for another day! / Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back.” Here, it’s clear the speaker wanted to take both roads; however, he realizes that he will probably never be able to come back to this crossroads. This is a metaphor for a decision that changes everything; a decision you have made where you have reached a point of no
In our lives we all make thousands of choices. The impact of a single choice however may not always be so obvious. In the poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost, he talks of the decision on which trail to take when the yellow wood diverged into two. Most notably the end he states, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--- I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference.”
...an hear the ice falling now and again, and the cracking of the birches as they blow one against another. In "The Road Not Taken", the focus is not on the woods themselves, but on the road that passes through them. The woods are the setting and they hide the road after it curves, as time hides the future from our eyes. Outwardly, this poem is about two roads, one that is well traveled and one that is not. Though both are worn about the same. The author takes the road that had not been taken, the grass tall and the leaves still freshly fallen and not trod on. This also symbolizes the choices that we have to make in our lives. We can follow others like sheep or we can boldly go our own way. The author went his own way and "that has made all the difference"! As has been shown, Frost uses his love of the outdoors to pull the reader there as well. His style of writing tells us much of the poet. He is leery of growing old and he looks back on youth with wistfulness and longing for another, happy time. This is something that we all share with him and this shared experience helps us to enjoy his poetry all the more, as it seems to tell our own story too.
Decisions separate one’s life from another. Robert Frost proves this to be true in his poem “The Road Not Taken.” The metaphorical twist Frost uses in his words and sentence structure emphasizes the importance of different decisions and how those choices will impact the rest of one’s life.
leads one to dwelling over the choice of road in which they did not take. In knowing that each one may be influenced in many directions, Frost clearly implies 'And be one traveler, long I stood.'; No matter how each of us may be influenced by family or various sources, there is only 'one traveler'; that will be affected by any decision and there is quite a lengthy thought process involved. Regardless of any outside influence there is only one to be involved and truly affected, as does any choice in life.
One of Robert Frost’s most well known poems is The Road Not Taken. Frost had mentioned numerous times that it was a “tricky- very tricky” poem (Grimes). This can be examined in the structure of the poem, the symbolism, and the diction. The simple language he uses in the poem reveals the common relevance of the poem to the people. People have to go about making choices each and every day of their lives. However, sometimes we come to a cross-road in our lives that can be life changing that is what the sentence structure reveals to us (Mcintyre). He uses common words but in a way that is unclear to the reader. For example the opening line of the poem is “two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (Frost, Robert. “1.”). The reader is not sure what is meant by yellow woods. It may mean the onset of fall or even the coming of spring. The season could relate to the speakers stage in life. It may mean this is their youth and they have to make a decision that will plan out the rest of their life, such as I am about what college to attend. Or is it indicating he has reached his mid-life, the fall, and is now presented with opportunity to change his...
Frost uses several literary devices in this brief account, such as imagery, personification, metaphor, and alliteration. Descriptions of “yellow wood,” depicting an autumn forest, and “no step [in the leaves being] trodden black,” indicating a fresh and natural recently untrodden environment, are included to create a picture in the reader’s mind and make the situation ore real and easily related to. It is possible that Frost may have purposely used the word “yellow” to imply the splitting paths. ("Cummings Study Guides") When describing the two paths, the narrator mentions that one “was grassy and wanted wear,” using personification to make it seem as if that path is calling to him to travel upon it. In the same phrase, Frost also makes use of alliteration to draw attention to the calling of the first path. ("Use of Literary Devices in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken")