The Very Ambiguous Road Not Taken
Donald J. Greiner states, "In the years since his death, biographical revelations and critical appraisals have torn off the mask to expose a Frost the public never knew: a flawed man with more than his share of personal tragedy, a major poet with more than his share of fear"(95). Many people consider Robert Frost to be a great poet with many accomplishments. His work is well known throughout Europe and the United States; however, most people do not know the kind of life Frost led. On the surface, Frost seems to be a skilled writer filled with ambition and determination, yet, on the inside, he is a man constantly tormented by a haunting past and many unknown tragedies. Frost often conveys his feelings in his poetry; thus, just as Frost's life has an underlying meaning, so do many of his poems. Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a poem that is often studied on its obvious surface level; however, the poem is actually very ambiguous in its underlying meaning.
Because the speaker in Frost's work can only take one path, he will never know what the other path holds for him. In the beginning of the work, the speaker states, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, /And sorry I could not travel both" (1-2). This statement supports the fact that the speaker realizes he can not take both paths; therefore, he can never know what each path has to offer him. The speaker often refers to the fact that he wishes to be able to explore both paths. When the traveler says he "kept the first for another day!" (13), he means that one day he intends to come back to the road he did not take and see what he missed. Supporting this fact, the speaker also declares that "knowing how way leads to way, /[he] doubted ...
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... way this experience has affected his life.
Like a façade, sometimes the surface structure of a poem can be very misleading, and, periodically, one must look deeper into the work in order to grasp its true meaning. Often simple words and phrases are the key to understanding a poem so traditionally studied with one meaning attached to it. As stated before, Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a poem frequently studied with a traditional insight; however, analyzed and critiqued at a different level this work is actually very ambiguous. Works Cited
Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." The North Introduction To Literature. 6th ed. Eds. Carl E.Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: W.W Norton, 1995. 1097.
Greiner, Donald J. "Robert Frost." Dictionary of Literary Biography. 3rd ed. Ed. Peter Quartermain. Vol.54. Detroit: Gale, 1987. 93-121.
Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Ed. Kenneth Eble. Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1982. The. 124-125 Lentricchia, Frank.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 695-696. Print.
Poetry is a form of art in which an exclusive arrangement and choice of words help bring about a desired emotional effect. Robert Frost said that a poem is formed when “an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” His popular poem, "The Road Not Taken," like any other poem, has as many interpretations as it has readers. Using rhetorical analysis, one can break down the meaning(s) of this seemingly simple poem.
Everyone is a traveler, carefully choosing which roads to follow on the map of life. There is never a straight path that leaves one with but a single direction in which to head. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken'; can be interpreted in many different ways. The shade of light in which the reader sees the poem depends upon her past, present, and the attitude with which she looks toward her future. In any case however, this poem clearly demonstrates Frost’s belief that it is the road that one chooses that makes him the man he is.
When CFC molecules reach the stratosphere, the sun's radiation breaks it apart, freeing the chorine atom to destroy ozone molecules. The effect is a growing ozone hole which forms over Antarctica in October and usually lasts through mid November. During the annual ozone hole, the amount of UV radiation that reaches the Earth can double. Ozone depletion serves as a major health risk for human beings. The three primary health effects of ultraviolet radiation on human health are damage to the skin,eyes, and immune system.
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.
David Wyatt writes, "Nowhere in Frost is the tension between surprise and anticipation, wayward experience and the form into which it is cast or forecast, more acute than in 'The Road Not Taken'" (129). As the poem is read, one cannot help but be pulled into the questions of which road will be chosen, how they differ, and what will become of the traveler. Perhaps some hope to find guidance for their own journeys by seeking answers in Frost's work. According to Michael Meyer, "The speaker's reflections about his choice are as central to an understanding of the poem as the choice itself." (97) Frost himself admits, "it's a tricky poem, very tricky." (Pack 10)
Robert Frost's “Birches” is written in blank verse and in mostly consistent iambic pentameter. The dependable rhythm of this poem can be likened to the reliability and purity of a child. This poem is not broken into stanzas, rather it is compact with his message and vivid images. This may be due to the fact that—in addition to Frost's desire for this poem to be read conversationally—the compact nature of this poem is attempting to explain the speaker's thoughts and observations in as little space as possible. “The Road Not Taken” is a poetic quintain consisting of four stanzas with five lines in each stanza. Each quintain's rhyme is a dependable ABAAB scheme. The rhyme scheme is comparable to the petrarchan sonnet and the rhyming couplets appear to provoke a sense of focused reflection. The rhythm of this poem is slightly more challenging. It is written in an iambic tetrame...
What is the ozone layer? The ozone layer is a part of the stratosphere containing highly poisonous O3 gas with a strong odor. Ozone is formed by the action of solar ultraviolet light on oxygen. Ozone at ground level is a health hazard. High concentrations of ozone at ground level are dangerous to breathe and can damage the lungs. However, the ozone layer inhibits most ultraviolet and other high energy radiation from entering to the earth's surface.
Gerber, Phillip L., Robert Frost Revised Edition, ed. Kenneth Eble, New York, Twayne Publishers, 1982.
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.
In the poem “The Road Not Taken”, author Robert Frost uses the simple image of a road to represent a person’s journey through life. A well-established poet, Frost does a proficient job of transforming a seemingly common road to one of great importance, which along the way helps one identify who they really are. This poem is one of self-discovery. Frost incorporates strong elements of poetry such as theme, symbolism, rhyme scheme, diction, imagery, and tone to help create one of his most well known pieces about the human experience.
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...
Perhaps one of the most well-known poems in modern America is a work by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken. This poem consists of four stanzas that depict the story of the narrator traveling through the woods early in the morning and coming upon a fork in the path, where he milled about for a while before deciding upon one of the two paths, wishing he could take both, but knowing otherwise, seeing himself telling of this experience in the future.