The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost - Essay Example

The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost Abstract Robert Frost, one of America’s most well loved poets surprisingly was published in England before being recognized in his native land. The poem The Road Not Taken is one of his most famous poems, studied in schools and depicting the dilemma of people choosing between two avenues, never sure about whether their choice was the right one and often looking back and wondering what the consequences of choosing the other path would have been. This complex philosophical theme is put forward against the background of a lonely rural setting, giving it a haunting nostalgia for things that could have been if the decision had been different. Robert Frost is one of the most well loved and critically acclaimed American poets of the twentieth century. Although he was honored with the Pulitzer Prize on four occasions and the Congressional gold medal for poetry, his initial foray into the literary field was rebuffed in America. He was however well received in England where he was encouraged and influenced by none other than Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas who befriended him. When he returned to America as the World War broke out, he had become a well known personality and found publishers eager to publish his works. He was honored by President Kennedy who asked him to write and recite a poem for his inauguration. His life at New Hampshire produced some of his best works and the influence of the rural setting is revealed in much of his poetry. The poem The Road Not Taken is considered a nostalgic commentary on the choices made in life and looked back on later with the perpetual question of what life would have been if one had chosen differently. It is the first person narrative of the supreme moment when an important decision in life is made. The theme of the poem is the age old dilemma of a choice between two alternatives. The narrator of the poem, ostensibly the poet himself is pondering the path he should take. The paths look alike and he tries to look ahead to see if his choice can be made easier by something he spots down one of the paths, but his vision is blocked by a bend in the path and he has to make a choice that would lead him so far away from the other that he would never again be at the crossroads to see where the other road led. While choosing the road, the poet ponders on the many differences between them. They seem to him fundamentally alike in that both are well travelled and the traveler has already made up his mind on which road he will take. As is human nature, he sees that road as the better one, “And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear;” yet looking back later wonders whether his decision was the right one and yet time has passed and there is no going back. The poem relates both at a literal and metaphorical level to the concept of one man’s journey through life. The narrator is literally standing at a junction in life where he has two choices that are denoted by the two divergent roads of which he must choose one. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both.” Although he says that he took a long time to make the choice, one wonders if that is really the case as he indicates more than once that the roads were very similar “Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same.” One wonders if the decision had already been made before he actually stood at the crossroads or was it an impulsive decision that the narrator had taken without the careful thought he suggests went into it. If one looks at the narrator in a different light one could visualize someone who is not young and having made mistakes before and being the wiser for them considers carefully before he chooses the road he wants to now take, “long I stood and looked down one as far as I could.” Metaphorically it seems to suggest that the narrator is not a young man, denoted by the symbolism of nature’s autumnal colors indicating that the roads were in a “yellow wood”. This suggests that the choice is made in later life for the future that lies in store for the narrator. Perhaps the poet is referring to the path he himself was choosing not in his youth but in middle age? The setting of the poem in the lonely woods in autumn and the tone of wistfulness for being unable to turn back the clock, seem to be the rueful ponderings of a man past his first youth and looking ahead at the loneliness of autumn and winter in the journey of life. The most obvious literary device used in the poem is the metaphor. The entire poem is based on the roads that are compared to the choices man makes through life’s journey, and how he thinks while making these choices. Imagery is another device that is effectively used. The imagery of the narrator bending to see if he can discern some important clue as to where the road leads, is an indication of all the probabilities we consider while deciding future actions. The symbolism of the roads throughout the poem is synonymous with the choices we are faced with throughout our lives. Every time a choice is made, one has to bear the consequences of that choice and even if the outcomes are good there is always a wistful curiosity in the thought of what the outcome would have been if another decision had been taken. The fact of having to make one of two choices symbolizes the power of the possibilities of each choice and the finality of that choice is depicted in the fact that there is no turning back. There are four stressed syllables per line varying on a base of the iambic tetrameter, and a strict rhyme scheme of ABAAB throughout the poem that possibly denotes a rhythmic continuous movement which is what the poet wants to describe, “knowing how way leads on to way” also points in this direction. However the last line is the exception, the word difference is used. However, usually the stress is never on the last four letters of the word difference. The title of the poem is significant in the sense that the narrator is skeptical about the correctness of his choice of the path that he took. It could have been The Road Taken which would mean the poet stood by his choice. In this poem the poet refers to the road that he did not take leaving the reader with the impression that either on looking back he is unsatisfied with the outcome of the choice he made or that he is just curious about what would have resulted if he had taken the other road and hence the title. Frost himself asserted that the inspiration for this poem came from his friend Edward Thomas with whom he took long walks in the woods and who was always in two minds about which path to take and never satisfied with the one they finally decided on. This possibly symbolized to Frost the human tendency of dissatisfaction with what one had and the eternal curiosity of what could have been. The poem may also have been a more personal characterization of his friend Edward Thomas to whom he once famously remarked “No matter which road you take, you’ll always sigh, and wish you’d taken another” (Frost, 1914). References Frost, Robert. 1914 “First World War 100 years on Edward Thomas, Robert Frost and the road to war” Matthew Hollis The Guardian, Friday 29 July 2011 22.57 BST Retrieved from Read More