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The road not taken by robert frost essay
The road not taken by robert frost essay
Robert frost poetry analysis
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http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/life.htm
Life has many roads you can take and it’s which ones you choose to follow that will shape your future forever. That is what I always take from this great Frost poem. He sees two roads both being equally appealing, but selects the one less traveled and how it makes his life unique. This poem is one of few that I do care for myself. It shows a man whose come to a point in his life where he has to decide what he will do with it. This is a point in our lives that everyone will come to and a somewhat difficult challenge for many. We have the many options ahead of us and must try and look ahead to what will come to decide our future. “And be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could.” I think this was a time in Frost’s life when he had just moved to London and was looking back at the choices he had made. He quit trying the Derry farm and sold it and moved to London to write. This was an awfully risky thing to do at this point with a wife and kids, but it shows his approval in retrospect. “Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear.” This shows that he choose a path that many choose to not to. He selected a harder path in life that could have been a devastating mistake given his situation in life. The easy road would have been more secure and he would have had less to worry about, but he probably wouldn’t have enjoyed life as much. “And both that morning had equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day!” This is the part of the poem I myself have always had a slight confusion with, but have taken it that it is supposed to show his selection of the more difficult path and how he would return to it later in life and try the other path. The thing that confuses me about this section of the poem is the next line.” Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” This to me shows that he wants to return and try different things in life, but knows once he has chosen a road trying a different one is quiet difficult.
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.
“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
What does the narrator mean when he says that taking the road less traveled by has made all the difference when the roads seem to be the same throughout the poem?
In this poem, Frost illustrates that every person has his own opinion. He states “Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim” (line 6-7). What make it better was “it was grassy and wanted wear” (line 8). It was something that was obviously not for everyone because it seems that the other people take the more popular one. “And both that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black” (line 11). No one had yet to pass by on this road since the leaves have fallen. “I kept the first for another day” (line 13). The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual, but “knowing how way leads onto way” (line 14). The speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one, and he “doubted if I should ever come back”
Though Frost's poem as he told was about him getting separated from his friend in the woods. It can't be denied that this poem clearly shows his beliefs, that it is the road that someone chooses that makes them who they are today or who they will become. With the first line opening "And Sorry" already you get a sense of regret. " ...
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)
It is easy to misinterept poetry, which is why it is important to reread the piece a few times as well as analyze it further. For example, the reader may miss all that Frost was trying to convey if the piece is hastily read through. Although “The Road Not Taken” is not a long piece of writing it has significant meaning and use of irony. Frost intended for the poem, ironically to be an example of how decisions were wrongly handled. It is more important to cherish the life one is currently living than to dwell on decisions that need to be made. Life is short and decisions are inevitable. Therefore Frost is ultimately encouraging to enjoy each moment and every decision. Consequently, Frost’s poem should be carefully dissected in order to bettter understand what he is trying to ultimately convey.
The rhyme scheme of Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ negates the idea of the ‘choice’ of the author in the poem, insofar as each quintain is dominated by three lines of an initial rhyme in iambic tetrameter and only two of the second, the effect of this is to show the imbalance of the choice that the author is making and so helps to tell the story. However, it could be argued that the ending rhyme being the second rhyme suggests that the narrator is unwilling to fully let go of the less dominant choice, it is this human reluctance that Frost manages to capture within his poem, ‘And sorry I could not Travel Both’ (2), showing that the narrator had hesitations about the future and the certain fear of the unknown, a relatable fear to all decisions. Even so, the more likely reason for the uneven balance of rhymes in the stanzas is to show how in most decisions there are, in fact, imbalances favouring one choice and a reluctance to follow it for the fear that the other road will offer
Reading Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” I could visualize every line I read and see the picture it painted. I could also see a couple different ways to interpret this from past experiences and others experiences I have helped with. One is as I think most think he is coming to a point in his life where most do and must decide on what is next for them. What fork in the road shall one take when faced with the life’s choices. Some roads are worn and traveled a lot, as it seems to be the road to much success.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a poem whose literary meanings were lost with the passing of time, leaving it a rather tricky poem to decipher. In and of itself, it is a poem about life and the choices we make that affect us daily. Be it a choice made with regrets, or none whatsoever, later on we will turn back on that moment and wonder what could be different had we not made the choice we did at that point in time. “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by,
The first stanza introduced the reader to the decision the author would have to make. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" to me signified that the result of his decision would arise from the same origin to which in my own life, I can reflect on. And though he would like to have seen the outcome of both paths, he knew he could only choose one. And to help him decide, he would look down both choices and see only until the road took a bend.
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.
Above all, 'The Road Not Taken'; can truly be interpreted through much symbolism as a clear-sighted representation of two fair choices. The two roads in the poem, although, 'diverging,'; lead in different directions. At the beginning they appear to be somewhat similar, but is apparent that miles away they will grow farther and farther away from each other. Similar to many choices faced in life. It is impossible to foresee the consequences of most major decisions we make and it is often necessary to make these decisions based on a little more than examining which choice 'wanted wear.'; In
When I first read it, I interpreted it literally, and thought that the speaker would sigh in the future when he tells the story of how he made the right decision of traveling on the less traveled road. However, after I re-read the poem a couple of times, I was able to identify that the speaker will sigh, because at the end, he doesn’t feel certain whether he made the right choice.
The overarching theme throughout the entire poem is that of choices. The concept of “two roads diverged,” or a split in the road, is a metaphor representing a choice which the narrator must make. Being “sorry [he] could not travel both… [being] one traveler” illustrates that, although he wishes he could see the results of both choices, as seen in saying he “looked as far as [he] could to where it bent,” he is but one pers...