ipl-logo

Road Not Taken Analytical Essay

427 Words2 Pages

The poem, “The Road Not Taken” written by Robert Frost in 1915 is a poem that is about life choices, and which path a person chooses to take in their own life. Adam Plunkett of the New York Times labels “The Road Not Taken” as “the most popular poem in American history (Plunkett, 2015).” David Orr, a scholar and literary critic, did an in depth analysis on how “The Road Not Taken” is a lot more than a person taking one road rather than another. As Orr states talking about the poem, “it plays a unique role not simply in American literature, but in American culture —and in world culture as well (Orr, 2017).” It starts with the first line of the poem, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 624).” Frost paints a picture for the reader, to envision walking on a path, and making a choice on which path seems …show more content…

Continuing on, Frost states, “And sorry I could not travel both (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 624).” These two lines are very important to pay attention to. There are two roads, and the person can only pick one path. Sometimes, a person picks the wrong path thinking it is the right path. Furthermore, the person ends up figuring out when they start going through the bumps and potholes of the path, or as seen in life the troubles and trials. They want to start saying sorry about making the wrong choice on which path to take. The poem starts to get really deep during line 11, “And both that morning equally lay (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 624).” This is one of the most important lines of the poem. The title is called “The Road Not Taken” however, line 11 is saying both of the paths are the same in the layout. Orr states, “the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable (Orr, 2015).” This poem is far more than just picking one path, it forces the reader to truly think about what Robert Frost is explaining

Show More
Related

  • A Comparison Of A Lesson Before Dying And The Road Not Taken

    500 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem "The Road Not Taken," the speaker faces a similar choice of paths. The speaker is presented with two paths and has to choose which one to take. The speaker eventually chooses the less traveled path, knowing that it will make all the difference in their life. The speaker understands that the road they choose will shape their life and that choosing the less traveled path will lead to greater

    Read More

  • Extended Metaphors In The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

    1032 Words  | 5 Pages

    During a poetry unit, many high school students have read the words, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” These are the opening lines to “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, a famous poem included in his collection Mountain Interval. The poem starts with the narrator walking in the woods and seeing two roads split from each other. He has to decide which road to take since this decision will forever shape him as a person. The speaker must recognize what can be gained and lost by each individual road and the choice to follow it.

    Read More

  • Thesis Statement In Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    778 Words  | 4 Pages

    By the end of the poem, we have learned that the difficulty of choices is that sometimes you really have to let fate take the lead. The use of symbolism with the paths shows that it doesn’t matter which side has been taken more but which is the best one for you. Frost’s use of a metaphor and symbolism helps us clearly understand the meaning of the poem and what he is really trying to say. “The Road Not Taken” is a poem in which we learn that sometimes we have to let fate take the lead. With the use of literary devices and tone we acquire that this poem is trying to show us that life is a mixture of both life decisions and fate.

    Read More

  • A Little Tooth: Poem Analysis

    915 Words  | 4 Pages

    Orr thinks that this poem is much deeper than simply choosing a road to take. In reality we only have one life to live. The choices we make in this life will highly affect us for as long as we shall live. I believe that is the depth of what David Orr is trying to get the readers to understand about "The Road Not Taken". Robert Frost was not just making a decision on which road he wanted to go down.

    Read More

  • Metaphors In The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

    1036 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost uses beautifully crafted metaphors, imagery, and tone to convey a theme that all people are presented with choices in life, some of which are life-altering, so one should heavily way the options in order to make the best choices possible. Frost uses metaphors to develop the theme that life 's journey sometimes presents difficult choices, and the future is many times determined by these choices. Throughout the poem, Frost uses these metaphors to illustrate life 's path and the fork in the road to represent an opportunity to make a choice. One of the most salient metaphors in the poem is the fork in the road. Frost describes the split as, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both (“The Road Not Taken,” lines 1-2).

    Read More

  • Popular Culture In Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    753 Words  | 4 Pages

    I believe that most movies, advertisements, music videos or TV shows that involve any form of decision making or situation of the ‘grass is always greener on the other side’ or even of ‘what might have been’ has influences from this particular piece of poetry. We see characters in shows contemplating a situation as minute as what dress to wear to something major such as should one quit their job or not, are they not all cases of which road to choose and which one will be the road not taken? After my 12th grade I too was caught at two roads, should I apply only to the college of my choice and risk taking a year off or apply to colleges I didn’t want to study in, in hindsight I realize that here too, there was a road not taken. Every decision we make is essentially a case of the road not taken. People have been making decisions before Frost even wrote this piece but now, for most people who have read this poem, when making a decision we associate it, possibly inadvertently with “The Road Not Taken”.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Road Not Taken

    1777 Words  | 8 Pages

    In “The Road Not Taken” a traveler goes to the woods to find himself and make a decision based on self-reliance. The setting of the poem relays this overall message. Providing the mood of the poem, the setting of nature brings a tense feeling to “The Road Not Taken”. With yellow woods in the midst of the forest, the setting “combines a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world with a sense of frustration as the individual tries to find a place for himself within nature’s complexity” (“The Road Not Taken”). The setting is further evidence signifying the tense and meditative mood of the poem as well as in making choices.

    Read More

  • The Structure Of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    1669 Words  | 7 Pages

    The road is really a likeness clearing up decisions that we make. Every so often there are incredible choices that will impact whatever is left of someone 's life, paying little respect to whether they know it or not. The verse, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is around one of those extraordinary minutes where one choice will change the course of one person 's life. We assume that depending upon the road a man picks, their life will turn out for more joyful in negative ways. In this sonnet in which we discover that occasionally we need to give destiny a chance to lead the pack.

    Read More

  • The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

    1778 Words  | 8 Pages

    In spite of the fact that "The Road Not Taken" is a multi layered poem with exacting and symbolic significance, in the exacting sense the storyteller and nature appear to have a unbiased relationship. The storyteller professes to have neither a positive nor negative point of view toward his environment. The forested areas do give him an alternative he should make: to movement down one trail or down another comparative one. "What's more, be one voyager, long I stood and looked down one to the extent I could to where it bowed in the undergrowth" (Frost, "The Road Not Taken"). The storyteller is stating thatsince he has nobody else with him, he knows this choice should be made with little assistance from whatever else despite the fact that he is encompassed by nature.

    Read More

  • The Road Not Taken Argument

    1267 Words  | 6 Pages

    The poem The Road Not Taken has been misinterpreted in many ways. For started the poem is about a person whom was walking down a yellow brick road. While the person is walking down the road he or she notice a split between the road leading through two different path. The person decided to make a choice by looking as far as he or she could through both road and chooses the one that was less traveled by.

    Read More

  • Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    183 Words  | 1 Pages

    Road Not Taken Robert Frost The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost written in 1916 is about making choices. Robert Frost had to make a choice on whether to take the road less traveled on or the on everyone takes the one he chooses “will make all the difference.” In the second stanza the traveler in is confused on with one to take. He says the both are worn the same but he can only take one.

    Read More

  • Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    769 Words  | 4 Pages

    Frost chooses to incorporate these two paths in the woods as theses choices and fears one has to face to continue moving forward in life. The person could have easily taken the well worn path, but chose to be different. This I think also was written because Frost wants to show how the great minds do not chose to take the same paths and do not do things like others. They find another way, their own way of doing things. This poem represents a great deal of independence as those who chose to be independent have to make difficult choices to follow their own hearts.

    Read More

  • Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

    1017 Words  | 5 Pages

    Robert Frost did an exceptional job of creating controversy among readers over what his poem “The Road Not Taken” is really about. Some people interpret the poem to be about the choices in life being what will really matter at the end of life, and how taking the path less traveled will enable you to be different and stronger in the end. Others would like to challenge this interpretation of Frost’s poem and declare that Frost purposefully wrote the poem to illustrate that people like to think that choosing one path over the other will make a difference, but in actuality both path are the same. So is the true meaning of Robert Frost’s poem determined by poem critics, or by each individual’s interpretations of the poem? Robert Frost himself, is

    Read More

  • Frost Vs Whitman

    686 Words  | 3 Pages

    Indecisive, he yearns to travel both roads, but he knows that by choosing one, he would end up completely cut off from the other – “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, /I doubted I should ever come back,” he says, implying that the opportunity to take the other path is lost when one is chosen. In the end, he finally decides to choose the one less traveled, saying that “it has made all the difference.” Frost’s writing style is often mirrored in his many works, possibly more so in “The Road Not Taken”. Like the speaker, Frost is often faced with crossroads – “crossroads of 19th century American poetry and modernism” (para. 1) that is. According to poetry critics and advocates, Frost’s verses often combined 19th century traditions and techniques with those of the 20th century.

    Read More

  • Literary Devices In The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

    1010 Words  | 5 Pages

    The two paths symbolize the life of the traveler and all his life decisions. This poem expresses life, because in life, there are important decisions that in some instances can make a really big change, sometimes it’s hard to find your way out of something, and there are many possible ways you can do it. “Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim” are verses where we can clearly see that this is a decision in to which he is putting a lot of thought. Throughout the poem, we learn that there are two paths to take, but the traveler, who we suppose is Robert Frost, is uncertain of which one to take. We learn that this is really a life decision, and not just a choice between two paths.

    Read More

More about Road Not Taken Analytical Essay

Open Document