The Road not Taken (Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
‘The
Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost is quite a popular poem;
unfortunately, however, its
popularity
comes mainly from the simple act of misreading. With this poem, Frost has given
the
world a piece of writing that every individual can relate to, especially when
it comes to
the
concept of choices and opportunities in life.
He
wrote it in England in 1915. The poem actually contains multi layers of meaning,
despite
the
fact that it is often interpreted as a celebration of rugged individualism. The
speaker in
the
poem is confronted with a choice between two roads, takes the road “less
travelled by”
and
he supposes that it made “all the difference”. However, Fros is able to create
enough
subtle
ambiguity in the poem that it’s unclear whether his judgement should be taken
at
face
value, and therefore, whether the poem is about the speaker making a simple but
impactful
choice, or about how the speaker interprets a choice whose impact is unclear.
Summary
“The
road not taken” is about making choices and their possible impact in our lives
in the long run. In the poem, the narrator arrives at a crucial juncture in his
life where he has to make a choice between two paths leading to destinations unknown
to him. The individual comforts with a thought about returning, be if his path
is unsuitable for him, yet in hindsight, he’s aware of the futility of such
thought. Since his current path will bring upon separate paths in itself,
disallowing any consequent reversal. The individual concludes on a melancholic
note of how different circumstances and outcomes would have been, had it been
the “other” path.
Detailed
Analysis
Stanza One
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
‘The Road Not Taken’ opens
with strong imagery, because of the diction used to depict two physical
roads separating from each other in “a yellow wood.” It is observably a forest
that is showcasing the colors of autumn.
Line two is hasty to display the theme of regret,
by revealing that the individual is “sorry” before he even decides which road
to take. We basically find ourselves observing a very important moment, where
he has to make a decision that is evidently difficult for him.
Lines three through five, express that the
individual is trying to see as far as he can down each road, to help him decide
which one he should choose to take.
Stanza Two
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
In this second stanza, lines six through eight: the
individual in ‘The Road Not Taken’ finally makes a decision
and chooses a road that he thinks and believes is better, because it looked
like not many people had walked on it before.
However, in lines nine and ten, he is quick to add
that the other road looked equally used in comparison to the one he chose, so it really was not as
less travelled as he was telling himself.
Stanza
Three
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
In the third stanza, Robert Frost mentions
in lines eleven and twelve that at the moment that this individual was making
his decision, both paths were nearly identical. No one had stepped through to
disturb the leaves on both roads.
Line thirteen is an important point in ‘The
Road Not Taken’ as this is when the individual finalizes his decision
of leaving the other road, for perhaps another time.
Lines fourteen and fifteen give us a glimpse of his
doubts. He honestly confesses to himself that it’s highly unlikely he will come
back to travel this other road because he knows as he moves forward, he will
continue to find other paths taking him further and further away from this
point, where he is standing at the moment.
Stanza Four
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In this last stanza, lines sixteen and seventeen,
the individual predicts that one day far into the future, he knows will tell
the story of this decision that he is now making.
Lines eighteen and nineteen expose that he intends
to lie and claim he took the less-travelled road. In reality, both were equally
travelled.
Finally, the last line expresses that the
individual is also planning to claim that his choice to take this less travelled
road made all the difference, in where he will be standing at the time.
Themes in the poem
Choices and Uncertainty
In "The Road Not Taken," the speaker
describes him or herself as facing a choice between which of two roads to take.
The speaker's choice functions as an extended metaphor for all the choices that the
speaker—and all people—must make in life. Through the speaker's experience, the
poem explores the nature of choices, and what it means to be a person forced to
choose (as all people inevitably are).
The poem begins with the speaker recounting the
experience of facing the choice of which road to take. The speaker's first
emotion is "sorrow," as he or she regrets the reality that makes it
impossible to "travel both" roads, or to experience both things. The
poem makes clear that every choice involves the loss of opportunity and that
choices are painful because they must be made with incomplete information. The
speaker tries to gather as much information as possible by looking "down
one [road] as far as I could," but there is a limit to what the speaker
can see, as the road is "bent," meaning that it curves, leaving the
rest of it out of sight. So the speaker, like anyone faced with a choice, must make
a choice, but can't know enough to be sure which choice is the right one. The
speaker, as a result, is paralyzed: "long I stood" contemplating
which road to choose.
The speaker does eventually choose a road based on
which one appears to have been less travelled, but the poem shows that making
that choice doesn't actually solve the speaker's problem. Immediately after
choosing a road, the speaker admits that the two roads were "worn ...
really about the same" and that both roads "equally lay" without
any leaves "trodden black" by passersby. So the speaker has tried to
choose the road that seemed less travelled, but couldn't tell which road
was actually less travelled. By making a choice, the speaker
will now never get the chance to experience the other road and can never know which
was less travelled. The speaker hides from this psychic pain by announcing that
he or she is just saving "the first [road] for another day!" But,
again, reality sets in: "I doubted if I should ever come back." Every
choice may be a beginning, but it is also an ending, and having to choose cuts
off knowledge of the alternate choice, such that the person choosing will never
know if they made the "right" choice.
The poem ends with the speaker imagining the far
future, when he or she thinks back to this choice and believes that it made
"all the difference." But the rest of the poem has shown that the
speaker doesn't (and can never) know what it would have been like to travel
down that other road—and can't even know if the road taken was indeed the one
less travelled. And, further, the final line is a subtle reminder that the
only thing one can know about the choices one makes in life is that
they make “all the difference”—but how, or from what, neither the poem nor life
provide any answer.
Individualism and Nonconformity
In "The Road Not Taken," the speaker is
faced with a choice between two roads and elects to travel by the one that
appears to be slightly less worn. The diverging roads may be read as being
an extended metaphor for two kinds of life choices in
general: the conventional versus the unconventional. By choosing the less-travelled
path over the well-travelled path, the speaker suggests that he or she values
individualism over conformity.
The speaker, when deciding which road to take,
notes that the second is “just as fair” as the first, but that it has “perhaps
the better claim, / Because it was grassy and wanted wear.” In other words, the
second road had the added benefit of being less well-worn than the first.
Notably, this absence of signs of travel is phrased positively rather than
negatively. Rather than stating outright that the road looked as if it had not
had many travelers, the speaker states that it was “grassy” (a consequence of low
foot traffic) and that it “wanted wear” (as if it were almost asking for the
speaker to walk on it). The speaker presents nonconformity as a positive trait,
and even implies that popularity can make things less appealing: the first
road, because of its popularity, lacks the grass that makes the second path so
enticing.
Despite the speaker’s preference for nonconformity,
though, the poem ultimately remains ambiguous about whether choosing the road
“less travelled” necessarily leads to a better or more interesting life. First,
the poem questions whether it's actually even possible to
identify what is non-conformist. After choosing the road that seems to have
been less travelled, the speaker then comments that, in fact, the two roads had
been "worn ... really about the same." The speaker seems to sense
that though he or she has attempted to take the road "less travelled,"
there's no actual way to know if it was less travelled.
Second, the poem subtly questions its own final
line, in which the speaker asserts that choosing the road he or she did
actually take has made "all the difference.” Many readers interpret this
final line as being an affirmation of the speaker’s decision to venture off the
beaten path. But note that the poem is careful not to state that choosing the
road less travelled has necessarily made a positive difference.
Further, because the poem has raised the possibility that the path the speaker
took was not in fact "less travelled," it also raises the possibility
that the speaker is wrong, and taking that particular path can't be said to
have made any specific difference at all. There is also a third option offered
by the poem, which is that the speaker is correct that choosing that road
"made all the difference," but that this "difference" was
created not by taking the objectively less travelled path—because no one can
measure precisely which path was less travelled—but rather by making the choice
to try to take the less travelled path. In this reading, the
poem implies that it is the effort made to take the less conventional path that
makes the difference.
Making Meaning
In “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker must choose
between two roads without having complete information about how they differ.
Even after having chosen the second road, the speaker is unable to evaluate his
or her experience, because the speaker can't know how things would have been
different if he or she had chosen the first road. In the final stanza, the
speaker imagines him or herself in the distant future looking back on this
choice. In this way, the poem engages not just with a choice being made, but with
the way that the speaker interprets that choice and assigns it meaning after
the fact. It is only when looking back, after all, that the speaker sees the
choice of which road to take as having made "all the difference."
Many people read the poem straightforwardly, and
believe the choice did make "all the difference." The poem, however,
is not clear about whether the speaker's final assertion is true. The speaker
explains that he or she chose to take the second road because it seemed more
“grassy” and less worn than the first, but soon admits that the two roads were
actually worn to "about the same" degree. By raising the question of
whether there was actually anything special about the road the speaker chose to
take, the poem further questions whether taking the second road could have
possibly "made all the difference," or even any difference at all.
The poem implies that the speaker in the future may look back and construct a
narrative of his or her life that is simpler and cleaner, and which gives this
choice more meaning than the truth would support. Using this interpretation,
the poem can be read as commenting more broadly on how all people
fictionalize their lives by interpreting their choices, in hindsight, as being
more purposeful and meaningful than they really are.
The poem can also be read in a third and more
positive way, though. In this third interpretation, the poem implies that it’s
less important whether the speaker’s choice actually "made
all the difference" than it is that he or she believes that
it did. In this reading, the poem recognizes that the speaker—and all
people—fictionalize their lives by creating meaning where there may not be any,
but portrays such meaning-making not as fraudulent, but rather as a part of
being human.
All three of these different possible readings
co-exist in "The Road Not Taken." The poem does not suggest a
solution to the question of the meaning in the speaker's choice, but rather
comes to embody the question itself, allowing for contemplation of the
mysteries inherent in defining or interpreting a life.
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