Different Aspects Of Journeys - Research Paper Example

Your Full 8 February Two Faces of the Journey: A Comparative Paper on “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty Introduction In literature, one of the most explored themes is that of embarking on a journey. Perhaps the two most celebrated works that dwell on the topic of a journey are Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path.” However, while these two literary pieces both focus on the same theme, their similarities seem to end there. As mentioned earlier, both articles discuss the topic of the journey, and, in fact, both present a dilemma for the characters in it. For “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker is faced with the choice of taking one road over the other while for “A Worn Path,” the main character is constantly being challenged to terminate her journey because of the trials that she encounters. Furthermore, Frost’s poem mainly describes the options of the speaker in taking one road over the other, thus, the focus is more on the roads themselves or the journey itself. On the other hand, Welty’s short story is more focused on the character of Phoenix, and how the journey she is taking is simply a means to show her qualities, convictions and characteristics as a person. This paper will explore the different ways by which these two pieces tackled the topic of taking a journey. The paper begins by providing a brief summary of each of the articles followed by a comparative analysis of the articles’ form and symbolisms. Summary The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost tells of the speaker who happens to chance upon a fork in the road in the woods. The two roads that lay before him are both littered with untrodden leaves until finally, the speaker chooses one of the roads telling himself that someday he will take the other, though of this, he is also doubtful. The speaker further goes on to say that someday, he will be reporting about how his journey turned out to be. On the other hand, the short story “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty talks about the journey of the main character, Phoenix, a very old woman who went on a trek to get medicines for her sick grandson. In this journey, she encounters and overcomes many challenges and trials that are representative of the challenges that she faces in society as a “colored” woman. Form Frost’s poem takes the form of rhyming quintains of iambic tetrameter. That is, it contains stanzas, four to be exact, of five lines each, consisting of four metrical feet (Hengreaves), with the ABAAB rhyming scheme. The metrical length of the poem is relatively shorter than most poems while the number of lines per stanza is longer. Thus, even this form of Frost’s poem is already an indication of what the poem wants to convey, which is nonconformity. The poem takes the first person point of view, as do most poems. As one reads the poem aloud, one would get the feeling of a steady, but also halting rhythmic flow, indicative also of how the speaker moves along the woods, seemingly unsure and indecisive about his actions. On the other hand, Welty’s short story takes the third person narrative, and is what is called a character story, because it provides a portrait of the main character in the story. The story does this by making the environment as a backdrop of Phoenix’s journey, providing the images and conflicts that are needed in the given work of fiction. Just like Frost’s poem, the form of “A Worn Path” seems to be indicative of the journey that Phoenix had to take. However, while “The Road Not Taken” feels like a steady flow of words and lines, the form that “A Worn Path” takes seems to convey a sense of urgency as signified by the short number of sentences that makes up each paragraph. Analysis of Symbols Perrine and Arp roughly define a symbol as “something that means more than what it is” (1983). Both “The Road Not Taken” and “A Worn Path” are littered with symbols that point to the importance of the journey of each of the piece’s main characters. In “The Road Not Taken,” the most notable symbol is of course the roads that the speaker must take. This seemingly straightforward analogy also presents the confusion in the interpretation of Frost’s poem. Many suggest that the poem’s message is as simple as, “Go take the choice that most people do not take” when it is actually much more, or perhaps much less, than that (Cady and Budd; Rath; Timmerman; Shucard, Moramarco and Sullivan). As mentioned earlier, the speaker is under much indecisiveness. Even as he takes one of the roads, he is still quite unsure that many years later, he will be happy with this decision, as signified by the following lines in the last stanza: “I shall be telling this with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and ages hence/”. Thus, the roads do signify the choices that one has to make in life. But, as Frost aptly puts it, one can never be sure of what these choices are going to bring. Perhaps, years later, one will be looking back to a previous decision thinking about what could have been, perhaps even wanting to have taken the other choice, in the first place but then again, “(doubt) if (one) should ever come back” (line 15). The conditions of the roads also signify the greater difficulty that the speaker had to face in choosing one over the other because both roads were very similar, as the second stanza aptly states that the road he did not take was “just as fair” (line 6) though taking the road that he did “had worn them really about the same” (line 10). Thus, further stressing the fact that life oftentimes presents an individual with very similar choices such that there is actually no way of knowing which choice would produce a better result. It seems, as the poem suggests, that the best thing that one can hope for would be to take one of the choices and decide thereafter whether that choice was indeed worth taking. This sense of indecisiveness and uncertainty is perhaps the starkest difference between “The Road Not Taken” and “A Worn Path” because Phoenix, the main character, was never indecisive of the decision she had to take though, at times, she faced greater challenges than a simple fork in the road. The first symbolism that the reader encounters in “A Worn Path” is the name of the main character, Phoenix, which is a mythical bird that lives for eternity, as it rises from the ashes every time it “dies” (Armour). As such, the name symbolizes death and resurrection, but not of Phoenix, but of her grandson and his memory, which is the primary reason for Phoenix embarking on the arduous journey (Hardin). While there is much debate about whether or not the boy is really dead, this paper takes the position that he is, owing to the many symbols in the short story that seem to allude to death such as the buzzard, the field of dead corn, the ghostly atmosphere, the pearly cloud of mistletoe (alluding to the “Pearly Gates”), and dancing with the scarecrow (in the hopes of chasing away thoughts of death), among others (Kirszner and Mandell). In fact, all these figures seem to represent Phoenix’s battle with Nature (the external conflict) and her battle with herself (the internal conflict) that she must overcome. Furthermore, these battles actually reflect the struggle of a human being against the challenges that society (Nature) offers, on social, economic and racial levels. Conclusion As literary pieces discussing the theme of embarking on a journey, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” both present the common dilemma of having to choose between two options. In “The Road Not Taken,” the choices are equally uncertain and yet could pose very different outcomes. Furthermore, whatever choice the speaker makes leads to regret and remorse for the one that he was not able to take. In “A Worn Path,” while it seems that the main character has likewise two options, moving on with the journey or giving up and going back, it seems that she has taken it upon herself to never provide herself with the opportunity to consider the second option. Her sheer love for the boy allows her to overcome all the trials that she faced, including her personal struggle as a frail, elderly woman. Thus, as she moves along and finally accomplishes the main purpose of her journey, the reader sympathizes with what she was able to do. In conclusion, the poem “The Road Not Taken” and the short story “A Worn Path” both provide valuable insights into the many challenges that a person must face, the undeniable pains and loss that one must deal with in choosing one option over another, and the sheer strength of the human spirit to stand by the decisions that one must make. References Armour, Robert. Gods and myths of ancient Egypt. American University in Cairo Press, 2001. Cady, Edwin and Louis Budd. On Frost. Duke University Press, 1991. Hardin, Sharon. "A worn path: A journey through the real and the not real." Publication of the Illinois Philological Association (2000). Hengreaves, Paterika. Poetry for all seasons: Poems, Forms and Styles. Author House, 2007. Kirszner, Laurie and Stephen Mandell. Literature: reading, reacting, writing. Thomson Higher Education, 2003. Rath, Harihan. The poetry of Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2003. Shucard, Alan, Fred Moramarco and William Sullivan. Modern American poetry, 1865-1950. University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. Timmerman, John. Robert Frost: the ethics of ambiguity. Bucknell University Press, 2002. Read More