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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 imagery created in The Road Not Taken, helps the author depict a internal and physical conflict of a decision that will change his path forever. The imagery used in the poem is when Frost states, “And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there, Had worn them really about the same,” (Line 7-10 Frost) The imagery used by the author creates a mental image for the reader to see the important differences of the description of the path, the safe route looking more pleasant and comfortable for him to walk, while the other is dark and abandoned, giving it more of a risk. Seeing both and describing their appearance, it has an influence on the author but also the reader. Frost not only applies his own life between making an important decision to stay safe or take a risk, but this mental image is also allowed to be applied to the readers. Frost makes the decision to take the risky route, which is also relevant still to our society. Frost explains the risky road was well worth it because of the positive energy he receives. Creating this image, he wants the reader to understand it is well worth it to take a risk in your life because they might feel the same energy Frost
“Oh, I kept the first for another day!” Despite this wish he realizes he can never come back and take the untaken path because his choice will lead him in a different direction. He knows that “way leads on to way.” Realistically he doubts if he will ever come back because it is impossible to return to that place and make the same choice under similar circumstances because the original choice will have changed his life
Everyone is a traveler, choosing the roads to follow on the map of their journey, life. Robert Frost puts his persona in front of a road of divergence, and he must make a decision on which to take. The two roads are almost identical, but one is less traveled. He looks ahead, but can’t see far, due to “where it bent in the undergrowth';. Alistair MacLeod does it differently; the narrator has come to a fork in the road, but without hesitation he takes the more traveled by.
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.
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.
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 ...
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".
...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.
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
The paths, like choices were not clear to him but nonetheless he had to make one, displaying the inevitability of choices. Suddenly the traveler made a choice and “took the other [path],” a metaphor for an impulsive decision. Instead of carefully examining both of his options, the speaker went for the one he believed to be less frequently used without knowing why he had chosen it, just understanding that he thought he would be just as happy with either choices. This leads into regret, shown when the traveler knows that “way leads on to way” and realizes that he doubted he will “ever come back.” Having no contentment, the traveler is aware some decisions are difficult, if not impossible, to alter.
The two roads in the poem relate to various paths one might be faced with in life. One path “bent in the undergrowth” (5) which means it had taken many times. However, the other path “was grassy and wanted wear” (8). This is the path in one’s life, which seems “unpopular” at the time. Not many people choose the path that is not typically chosen by others. This is what Frost is doing in his poem as he uses these solid metaphors: challenging his readers to “go against the flow” as the man did.
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.
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")
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.”