Frosts Advice for Life Found in the Conceptual Metaphor - Essay Example

Frost’s Advice for Life Found in the Conceptual Metaphor Robert Frost’s poetry is usually so full of beautiful imagery depicting the natural wonders of the Vermont landscape in which he lived that it is often focused on much more deeply than the profound insights to human concerns that are buried within the text. An example of this type of interpretation is the mistaken concept by many people regarding Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” While most people recognize that he is talking about more than the picturesque pathways that are stretched out before him, most people interpret the poem as recommending they take the road less traveled by as a means of living an independent and happy lifestyle. Easily understanding the conceptual metaphor that life is a journey, when applied to the poem, those who choose to look beyond the imagery determine that the poem is telling us that individuals should strive to follow their own path in life rather than attempting to follow the paths that have been mapped out for them by others. It isn’t bad advice, but it isn’t exactly what Frost had in mind. According to biographer Larry Finger (1978), Frost once told an audience, “You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem - very tricky” (478) when referring to “The Road Not Taken.” While the conceptual metaphor still applies, a close reading of the textual cues of the poem indicate that Frost is not recommending which road should be selected, only providing a warning that, once selected, it is impossible to know what might have been missed had one followed the other way. Generally speaking, a conceptual metaphor is defined as a metaphor “that is so basic in the way people think about something that they fail to perceive that it is a metaphor” (“Conceptual Metaphor”, 2007). It is an idea that is brought forward by Lakoff and Johnson that illustrates that this connection is made at such a deep level that it cannot be avoided. “Lakoff and Johnson revealed, through theoretical argument supported by empirical investigation, the centrality of metaphor to thought exemplified in the ubiquity of metaphorical forms in everyday, conventional language” (Bailey, 2003). In other words, it is the means by which we are able to discuss our ideas and beliefs with others, which requires a shared language and cultural base and serves as a means by which we define ourselves. “Accordingly, we talk about things the way we conceive of them, and this is fashioned through and grounded in experience and culture: our basic conceptual system ‘is fundamentally metaphoric in nature’” (Bailey, 2003). The conceptual metaphor that links ‘life’ with ‘journey’ is culturally ingrained in nearly every Western-born individual. Therefore, when Frost discusses taking a walk in the woods and coming to a fork in the road, the reader has already made the connection, deep within them, that this poem must have something to say about life. For most readers, though, the beautiful scenery the poem conjures up – the ‘yellow wood’, the ‘undergrowth’, the ‘grassy’ way and the fresh leaves that ‘wanted wear’ – creates a need for them to pause here and conclude that Frost himself took the road ‘less traveled by’ as the best possible option, recommending this as the best course of action for everyone. A close reading of the poem reveals that this conclusion is not quite as deep as Frost intended, or is perhaps deeper. At any event, it is not necessarily what he had in mind at the time he wrote the poem. While the poem is making a connection between Frost’s walks in the woods and the journey through life, the connection he was making was quite different from prescribing a particular path to follow. As has been indicated, “most people seem to interpret this poem as a tribute to the road less traveled, as an endorsement of the decision to plow new ground, to explore new territory, to try or to create something new” (Bellah, 2004). This interpretation of the poem does have plenty of validity to it, but it is not necessarily supported by the text any more than Frost’s comment about the poem being tricky indicates a single valid interpretation of it. As Bellah (2004) points out, the title of the poem is “The Road Not Taken” rather than “The Road Less Taken” (emphasis added), which provides the first clue as to the author’s original intentions and a different reading of the poem. An analysis of the linguistic tools used by the author in the four stanzas of the poem begins to suggest another possible interpretation. The first stanza of the poem establishes the setting and the mood of the poem. It opens with the line “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” This immediately places the reader within an idyllic, timeless, peaceful place, standing at a fork in the path where a choice must be made. Frost is able to do this by using words such as ‘diverge’, which suggests leisure time with its association to the word ‘diversion’ and a lack of concern as people only allow themselves to ‘diverge’ from their purpose when they aren’t already busy with other activities. The wood he is in is yellow, which the Western culture most often associates with happiness, friendship and pleasant sunshine. This is made even more clear when it is considered this is a scene happening in Vermont, when yellow is associated with warmth and the new yellow-green leaves of spring or the bright yellow leaves of early autumn. At the same time, Frost removes any fear of the wood because a yellow wood does not contain any shadows or fearsome places within its depths, only deeper and perhaps friendlier yellows. Having warmly welcomed his readers into his world, he confides he is “sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler” (2-3). This indicates that both roads before him are equally appealing and equally unknown. This does not suggest, as the common interpretation would have it, that one road is well-known and thus less dangerous or somehow easier. Because both roads are equally unknown, Frost wishes instead that he could find some way of taking both roads at the same time and somehow managing to gain the experiences of both while remaining only a single man. He “looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth” (4-5), again illustrating he has plenty of time to spare and that he has found nothing frightening down the somewhat overgrown path in this first direction. The second stanza opens with the second path, the one Frost indicates he elected to take, which was “just as fair” (5). For Frost, however, this second path has the ‘better claim’ on him because it appears for a moment to not have been as well traveled as the first. He suggests this idea by saying that the second path ‘wanted wear’ or needed someone to walk on it more often to reclaim it from the grasses that were starting to crowd over it. This is where the common interpretation enters, as one road has been traveled upon more often. However, it is important to remember, again, that Frost has not traveled down either. While one road is well-known to someone, it is not well-known to Frost and is therefore not necessarily any easier or safer for its greater traffic. At the same time, while the first path was described as having undergrowth that prevented a longer view, this second path is described as grassy, indicating that perhaps it is more in the sun with all the psychological appeal that connotes and also perhaps affords a longer view of what lies ahead. However, Frost admits that despite their differences, both paths were equally ambiguous as he would never know what lie down either one of them until he journeyed along them. In this respect, they were identical, “Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same” (9-10). The idea that the paths are equal is explicitly stated in the third stanza, as is the concept that once the choice has been made, there is no recapturing the other option, bringing the poem into greater contextual meaning. In describing the paths, Frost says that “both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black” (11-12), refuting claims that one path before him was, in reality, traveled more frequently as he is the first to step on either one today. Having successfully navigated the discussion around to the conceptual metaphor of life equals a journey, Frost now points out one of the common fallacies individuals tell themselves as they pass through life, “I kept the first for another day” (13) indicating the common promises people make to themselves all the time, that they will do something on another day but never get back to it again. But Frost says, “knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back” (14-15), illustrating how difficult this step is and emphasizing the idea that while one may choose to follow a career later, that career will not be the same road as the one met back in the yellow wood that day before deciding to have a family first. This realization reached in the third stanza is only fully revealed in the fourth stanza as Frost, still standing at the crossroads, projects his thoughts into the future when thinking back on this decision, “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence” (16-17). This opening to the stanza invokes a sense of the sadly nostalgic, as if the speaker will be still regretting the fact that they could not experience both roads at once. While he might actually prefer where he ends up on this path to where he would have ended up on the other path, he will never know the difference, therefore he will never know whether his sigh is in satisfaction or in regret. However, in the end, “I took the road less traveled by / And that has made all the difference” (19-20). The word focused on here is typically ‘difference’, usually interpreted to indicate that it is a positive difference and it was Frost’s decision to take the less traveled road that brought about positive influences into his life. However, Frost seems to be focusing on the word ‘I’, meaning he has made his decision as to which road was the better road for him. While he will never know if he was right or wrong, his decision has ‘made all the difference’, he has lived his life according to the decisions he has made. The underlying message of the poem seems to be that individuals should make choices in their lives based on their own paths and their own inclinations because the path selected often ‘leads to way’ by pointing to new pursuits in life. It is almost never possible to turn back and try that other path in the woods. “Frost’s poem reminds us that one rarely returns to roads not taken. That’s why … it’s so dangerous to keep putting things off that we consider truly important. Temporary choices have a way of becoming permanent ones, and today’s procrastinations are tomorrow’s regrets” (Bellah, 2004). At the same time, he illustrates the longing more than one of his reader’s have shared, the longing that one could be both career hotshot and bask in the glow of family at one and the same time or combine any number of mutually exclusive choices in life. “Like it or not, we can’t take all the roads we want to in life. Frost’s words also remind us that we really are one traveler, and trying to choose everything in life will leave us just as empty as choosing the wrong thing. We can’t keep changing roads and expect to reach the end of any of them. Ultimately, over-commitment arrives at the same destination as procrastination: at the road not taken” (Bellah, 2004). While Frost’s poem does offer the reader wisdom for life, it is not pointing out a specific way as has been most often understood, but is instead warning us to make our choices carefully, according to what is right for us. Works Cited Bailey, Richard. “Conceptual Metaphor, Language, Literature and Pedagogy.” Journal of Language and Learning. Vol. 1, N. 2, (2003). Bellah, Mike. “The Road Not Taken.” The Best Years. (January 2004). December 29, 2007 “Conceptual Metaphor.” Open Politics. (2007). December 29, 2007 Finger, Larry L. “Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’: A 1925 Letter Come to Light.” American Literature. Vol. 50, N. 3, (November 1978): 478-489. Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost’s Poems. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Washington Square Press, 1971: 223. Read More