In this second stanza, lines six through eight: the individual in ‘The Road Not Taken’ finally makes a decision and chooses a road that he thinks and believes is better, because it looked like not many people had walked on it before. We like to take our time in order to make informed decisions so we can justify our choices when the regret of missing out on the other “roads” starts to haunt us. In order to gain some things in life, we must let others go.īy having the character in the poem examine the roads ahead of him, Frost is emphasizing that we all try our best to guess what lays ahead for us in every opportunity that we are presented in an attempt to find some control and later comfort over our final decisions. And like the character in ‘The Road Not Taken,’ oftentimes, we are disappointed that we cannot hold on to, and experience the consequences of every opportunity that is presented to us. This is experienced literally: in the roads we take and the routes we walk daily, and figuratively: when we come to points in our lives where we must make decisions for our next steps, based on the opportunities presented to us. We as people go through many circumstances and experiences in our lives, and one of them is choosing between two (or more) paths. The first two lines of this stanza introduce the dilemma that every human faces, not once, but multiple times in his or her life the dilemma of choice. Let’s thoroughly analyze the lines and their meaning below. Lines three through five, express that the individual is trying to see as far as he can down each road, to help him decide which one he should choose to take. We basically find ourselves observing a very important moment, where he has to make a decision that is evidently difficult for him. Line two is hasty to display the theme of regret, by revealing that the individual is “sorry” before he even decides which road to take. ‘A Road Not Taken’ opens with strong imagery, because of the diction used to depict two physical roads separating from each other in “a yellow wood.” It is observably a forest that is showcasing the colors of autumn. In hindsight, his regret is everlasting in this case point. The future self will regret first his decision about taking the road less traveled on. This self-realization is pathetic and ironic in itself. The grassy roads and yellow woods represent the present as the individual views from a future perspective. Frost’s take on this is slightly complicated.
‘The Road Not Taken’ actually steers clear of advising on selecting a definitive path.
Robert frost the road not taken analysis free#
Since humans are free to select as per their will, their fate is unknown to them. Similar forks are representative of everlasting struggle against fate and free will. The archetypal conundrum is the primary attraction of the poem, readers instantly relate to their personal experiences.įorks and woods are used as metaphorical devices relating to decisions and crises. Marrying elements of form and content, arresting artistic phraseology and metaphors, the poem is mostly read without being understood. Robert Frost’s poetic masterpiece is arguably the most infamously misunderstood poem as of yet. The individual concludes on a melancholic note of how different circumstances and outcomes would have been, had it been the “other” path. Since his current path will bring upon separate paths in itself, disallowing any consequent reversal. The individual comforts with a thought about returning, be if his path is unsuitable for him, yet in hindsight, he’s aware of the futility of such thought. In the poem, the individual arrives at a critical juncture in his life, arriving at crossroads at last near “a yellow wood.” As per him, the paths are equally well-traversed and yield anonymous outcomes. ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost describes how the speaker struggles to choose among two roads diverging in the yellowish woods on an autumn morning.
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