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Literal meaning of the road not taken
Analysis about the road not taken
What is the main metaphor of the road not taken
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Thesis 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. Describe the literal scene and situation. 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 point where the “undergrowth” (Arp & Johnson, 2009) disguises the rest. The situation he faces is this which direction should he take? The one road appeared undesirable a route. The other road was one in which many people had been down. He still did not know the outcome of either route but his decision was to go down the road that was unknown or unproven. What mood is the speaker in at the end of the poem? The traveler’s mood is wistful, he knows that he will be “telling and retelling the story” (Arp & Johnson, 2009) of this part of his life. I think that the “sigh” (Arp & Johnson, 2009) could be representative of many things satisfaction in that as he reached the end of the unknown or untraveled road and the outcome “made a difference” (Arp & Johnson, 2009) in his life. It could also be that he wonders how his life would be had he gone down the more proven path. What are the metaphorical (or symbolic) implications in the poem? We assume that in Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, that the road tha... ... middle of paper ... ...s in our lives, we must make these types of choices do we continue with our safe, reliable ways or do we step into the unknown and as the man at the end of the poem discover it will have “made all the difference” (Arp & Johnson, 2009). The choices we make in our lives ultimately decide our future we must realize however no matter what the choice is we cannot go back relive our past and experience other outcomes. Frost conveys this theme with symbolism. The symbolism is not the physical paths the man must choose to take but the metaphorical one he needs to choose which way he wants his life to go down the same safe path he has been on the majority of his life or the unknown one in which he may experience great things or torment. This reminds me of Proverbs 14:12 (The Message) There is a way of life that looks harmless enough; look again - it leads straight to hell.
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.
Frost uses the idea of “The Road Not Taken” as an example of the paths that most people in life do not take but some decide to not follow the pack. We instantly recognize that this poem is going to be about life choices and that we do not necessarily know what the outcome of taking that path will be. He also uses the tone of the poem to deliver the meaning of the poem just like Silverstein. He uses tone by giving the reader an idea that the character will in the future question his choices because he will have to go through the uncommonly taken path (life) alone. Overall, the poem uses similar literary devices to instill the main theme of life into the
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost shows the reader how the choices they make will be hard decisions and will follow them. The setting of this poem takes place in the woods, in the fall. The woods will typically be a quiet and serene place making the setting an ideal place for decision making. The setting also helps to show the symbolism that Frost shows by describing the two paths. Frost uses pathos when appealing to the reader’s feelings because any reader has had to make a decision in their life. Creating this symbol helps to relate to the reader. The Imagery that is created helps to make the reader feel as if they are standing in the snowy woods, looking down two paths, and trying to make the decision of which one to take. Frost used
At the end of the poem, the regret hangs over the travelers’ head. He realizes that at the end of his life, “somewhere ages and ages hence” (line 17), He will have regrets about having never gone back and traveling down the road he did not take. Yet he remains proud of his decision, and he recognizes that it was this path that he chose that made him turn out the way he did. “I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference” (line 19-20). To this man, what really made the difference is that he did what he wanted, even if it meant taking the road less traveled.
Robert Frost was born in 1874 and died in 1963. During his years of living Frost, wrote 105 poems including; The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, Stars, and A Time to Talk (Best Famous Robert Frost Poems) and many more. While Frost was in his early and late twenties he attended school at Dartmouth University, only to return home and have unsatisfactory jobs, and Harvard University, where he had to drop out after two years due to health concerns. He married Elinor White on December 19, 1895, together they had four children but only two were able to live into adulthood. In 1912, Frost and Elinor decided to move their family to England, where Frost met Edward Thomas. It has been said, that Frost and Thomas would
In the opening stanza, Frost describes coming to a point during a walk along a rural road that diverges into two separate, yet similar paths. The narrator finds that he ...
Stumbling across two separate paths in the woods, one that is worn and the other not quite so much, Frost is left with a challenging decision as to which path to follow. At first glance, they both appear to be relatively similar, but after a moment of contemplation, he decides to take the path less traveled.
Robert Frost interpreted most of the decisions we make in life into this twenty-line poem of a man choosing which path to take in a "yellow wood". Everyday I make a decision to do a certain task, take that certain walk, or to sit at home and do absolutely nothing. Being one person, I can never know for sure what the exact outcome might be if I were to choose the other decision. For instance, I take a leisurely walk every night and I sacrifice my time to do something else. Although this may not always account to me personally, I do sometimes think what the other choice may have brought me. And often times, I complete the task with a sense of relief, a "sigh" perhaps, that the choice I made turned to be a well-made decision. Though most people rarely look into the sacrifice of decision making the way Robert Frost does, it is indeed a highly examined way too understand "a path less traveled by".
The two roads presented in this poem represent difficult decisions we are faced with in life. He uses the relationship between the paths and real life decisions throughout the whole poem. This is an example of extended metaphor, which is used to help the readers understand the analogy between the two. The man in the poem said: “long I stood” (3), which lets us know the decision was not made instantly. It was hard for the man to make a final judgment.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” provide us contrasting and sometimes similar glimpses of life. “The Road Not Taken” is about taking control and living life. “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” entails the desire for rest, perhaps due to the speaker’s feelings of weariness from facing life’s struggles. The poet also explains the tough choices people stand before when traveling the road of life. Sometimes people regret the possibilities of the road not chosen, sometimes people feel proud about the road they have chosen.
shows the point in which one will choose because there is only one path in which one may travel. It is most difficult to make a decision on each appealing path because everyone will always seem to question 'what could I or could I not miss out on?'; The
In the poem, a person is walking along a path in an autumn forest in the early hours of the morning, when he stumbles upon a fork in the road. The speaker wishes that he would be able to travel down both of them, but he has places to go, and he does not have enough time. One is worn out from people walking along it so much, and the other is grassy and barely worn from fewer people walking on it. Although neither of them had been traveled on that day, as the leaves were still fresh on the ground, the speaker was compelled to travel the second or grassier path. The speaker fin...
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...
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...
This poem is one of many written by Frost in 1916 and it is commonly used in high school writing classes. It has been written about frequently and often analyzed because of the connection people feel to the poem for the reason that everyone has to make life choices. The reading of the poem touches a wide variety of readers because each one can identify with the writers predicament of having to make a choice, with two different options, as in the poem which road to take either the well-traveled path or as he decides the less journeyed. As an outcome of this choice, the writer states, that his life was profoundly different than it would have been had he taken the other road. The other road the more traveled and seemingly the safer of the two makes the reader seem more fearless to except what the unknown has to offer thus making his own way in the world. In reading further the roads are almost the same both being beautiful and equally passable. The writer tries to explain why things happened the way they did and that is a significant moment in his life. One might pick the road that gets them to w...