Symbolism In Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

The poem “The Road Not Taken” was written by the famous writer Robert Frost. The poem is better understood when analyzing the life of the author. At the beginning of his life, Frost was struggling to support his family. With the help of his grandfather, Frost bought a farm in New Hampshire, the setting of many of his early poems. Unable to make a living as a farmer and part-time teacher, unable to get more than a few poems accepted for publication, Frost, and his wife took their growing family to England. When he returned to the United States, he was almost forty-years-old. Then he became widely known as a poet and a lecturer. As a poet, performer, and public figure, Frost played the role of the New England sage. According to the book Discovering Literature, Robert Frost became a living legend. He spoke as the voice of homely truths, distrusting science, progress, and professors. He also maintained the image of someone staying close to the grass roots, keeping in touch with the

The plot of the poem is that the narrator has a decision he has to make. He has to decide which road he will travel. The setting of the story is the narrator standing before two yellow wooden roads out in nature. The first road is described as grassy and wanted wear and the second road is described as being bent into undergrowth. The narrator is staring at two very different roads and is deciding which one he should travel. The irony in this poem is that it does not matter which road he takes he will be mad at his decision either way. At the beginning, the narrator describes the roads as one is more difficult than the other. He sees one bent in undergrowth and the other grassy and wanted wear. Then towards the middle of the poem, he describes the roads as equally worn with leaves. The fork in the road is a metaphor for the choices throughout the poem. The roads also symbolize the roads that we take throughout