Robert Frost was one of America's greatest poets. From 1874 - 1963 he
has written many famous poems including "Nothing Gold can stay" and
"The Road not taken" which I will be writing about. He lived in San
Francisco and sadly died in Boston in 1963. He moved to Massachusetts
when he was eleven and went to the local high school. He then
continues to go to Dartmouth College.
The Road Not Taken is a poem about decisions in life and how each one
leads onto another road, spreading into a vast complexity of
situations and life. The roads symbolise decisions and how each
decision effects the whole journey ahead of him.
The first verse is about his first decision in the network of roads
that he could have taken. He ponders which road to follow and wonders
what the consequences of each road could lead to. He tries to look
into the future by peering down the road to where it makes a turn!
The first line, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" means that he
has to walk down one of two roads leading in opposite directions and
the yellow wood could be a screen blocking his vision into the future
of his choice. In the second line, " And sorry I could not travel
both", means that he wished he could have chosen both to compare each
road to the other road and choose the one he preferred. However, he
could not do this because once he had chosen one path, he could not
retrace his footsteps and tread the other path. The third line, "And
be one traveller, long I stood", means that he took a long time and
had thought a lot about which road to enter. By him being a traveller
it means that he is just one more person who has to make this
decision. He has to travel through a network of randomly generated
decisions, and to...
... middle of paper ...
...ing gold can stay" is
saying that nothing beautiful lasts. I personally agree with this
statement as it applies to all things in today's modern society.
Nothing good will ever last. We will all die one day and anything good
we did have will be gone.
I really enjoyed studying these poems because they all related to life
and how life works. They have a similar style and at first I did not
have a clue what was being told. Once you look at the poems in more
depth though, you can see the points they are trying to get across. I
would not recommend these poems to anyone though, because people might
find them boring as I did from the beginning.
Putting both poems side by side, I can say that I enjoyed studying
"Nothing gold can stay" more than the other because I understood the
issues more clearly and I liked the way Robert Frost put the seasons
into a poem.
Often in life we are faced with two choices, one of which we have to pick. The decision can be life changing, so obviously one wants to choose the right path to go down. In Blanche Farley's The Lover Not Taken we see this same occurrence of a life changing decision. The poem takes Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken and puts a parodistic spin on it, making the poem's narrator choose both objects of her affection, instead of just one. She does, however, still travel the road not usually taken, risking it all for lust. This, along with the poem's many poetic elements, tells the reader to live their life to the fullest now, before it's too late and life has passed you by, leaving a trail of regrets.
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.
“And sorry I could not travel both” (2), the speaker is coming to a decision. In everyone’s life, they must make a decision to follow God or not to follow God. In this poem, the speaker has to make this choice. He tries to look down both roads as far as he can to see the choices that might result from taking either path. “Yet knowing how way leads on to way” (14), he knows that this decision is not temporary. He knows that once he chooses a path, he “doubted if I should ever come back” (15[VR1] ).
In analyzing and comparing symbolism, form, and style of the literary work “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and the short story of “A Worn Path” by Eudora, Welty I ask so what is the symbolic discovery that gives the reader new ideas, connecting experiences, considering deeper insights, and coming to conclusions with harmonious delight? Although we all have ‘roads’ or ‘paths’ to take on our journey in life it is in how we handle the experience; and what we gain from those life journeys that will either enrich our life or be our demise. I intend to show that detail in the short story gives us a more precise imagery giving a lead to our imagination than that of the poem. The Symbolism in both brings to light a positive message each in its own rhythm and to each individual reader a metaphor and food for life.
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.
The first line in "The Road Not Taken" is "two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (Frost 1). This gives the reader right off of two separate choices that the traveler can choose. The second line is "and sorry I could not travel both” (frost 2). This lets the reader know that in fact the traveler did choose one path. Just by reading the first two lines the reader can already feel the tone of being decisive. Throughout the poem it gives great descriptions as the travel compares to two paths. An example of this one would be line 8, "Because it was grassy and wanted wear". This statement also lets the reader know that the traveler already knew which one to pick by the looks of the road, thus road being the less traveled upon. At the end of the poem, the line 19 &20 lets us know the traveler has made a decision. Though in the traveler’s words one can almost sense sadness. The traveler explains that one day he would like to go back and travel the other path.
Decisions are an everyday part of life. Although many decisions made throughout the day may not be crucial to our path of life, most every decision will affect life in some way. Pop tart or bagel, milk or orange juice, as well as drive or take the bus are all choices people make to begin their day, but Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is a perfect example of a life altering decision. Frost wrote this poem when his dear friend, Edward Thomas, was stuck between staying with Frost and becoming a poet, or going to war against Germany in World War I. “Two Roads”, later changed to “The Road Not Taken”, angered Thomas, and caused him to enlist in the war, only to be killed in action two months later at Arras on Easter Day. "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost has a literal meaning from the speaker, or traveler, of the road he did not take, but the deeper meaning certainly shows how decisions alter your life.
In Night and Life Is Beautiful there are similarities that obvious like how they are both
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.
“The Road Not Taken” examines the struggles people run into when they come to a place in their life where a life altering decisions has to be made. The man who is described in this poem is traveling when he comes upon “two roads diverged” (1). He then has to choose which path he will take to continue on his journey. After standing at the diversion for a while, he knows he has to make a final decision. One path was worn down and “bent in the undergrowth” (5), so he took the other path, which was described as “perhaps the better claim/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (6-7). The man of the poem begins to ponder about a time when he will be telling his story of the path he took. Although we are not sure if the man regrets his decision or is relieved, he lets us know taking the road less traveled “has made all the difference” (20).
The Road Not Taken is a twenty-line poem written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABAAB. This poem starts with the author walking through the woods. He comes to a fork in the path and is torn by which path to take...does he take the path that is traveled by everybody, or the one rarely traveled upon? He decides to take the road less traveled by. By taking this path he changes his life in some way unknown to the reader.
In analyzing the poem 'The Road Not Taken'; by Robert Frost, it represents 'the classic choice of a moment and a lifetime.';(pg 129) He relies much on the reflections of nature to convey his theme. However, this poem seems to be in essence very simple but
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...
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...
"The Road Not Taken: a Study Guide." Cummings Study Guides. Michael Cummings, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2011. .