Poem: The Road Not Taken
Author: Robert Frost
Definitions
Diverge: (Intransitive verb) to move or extend in different directions from a common point: draw apart.
Trodden:(Past Participle of tread,Transitive verb) to step or walk on or over
Doubted:(Transitive verb) to lack confidence in: to distrust.
Annotation:
“Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow wood”
The yellow wood is a representation used by Robert Frost to illustrate the decisions we make and the knowledge we gain as older people Yellow is a color in poetry that has a multitude of meanings, two of them being age and intellect. In this poem the author uses the color yellow to describe the, age and wisdom that one has to go through as they travel through the woods, and the diverging path demonstrates to the reader the only way you can move in life is forward no matter what direction your coming from ,and that ‘even though at times in our lives we want to go back on a decision or choice; the truth is there is no chance of going backwards you only have one choice one chance and the only looking back you can actually accomplish is on your thoughts about the past whether they be filled with regret or remembered with happiness. Frost recognized that younger people think there are always ways back, but as we age we understand that no matter what path we take all paths only go forward not backward(spark.N).
Explication
Road Not Taken is a Poem by Robert Frost it is one of his better known pieces, it is a positive poem , with a theme that focuses on the choices of an Individual. The poem can be viewed from a number of different viewpoints although this poem is usually taken as a positive message of the choices one make in life , but when looked at from a different aspect, a negative aspect, then the poem turns out being less ,feel good, reading and more healthy dose of reality, the reality of missed opportunities and regret , thus deviating from the normal popularly held view.
At the beginning of the poem we find the speaker at a fork in the path of his life, he is faced with the decision of which way should he go. He knows he can’t have his cake and eat it too or in other words he “could not travel both” in (line 2) he states a realization of this fact since he doesn’t expect to return to that particular spot which he expresses in (line 15), Despite all this however he says he “kept the first for another day” in (line 13). He studies both choices or paths for some time, “long I stood” he says in (line 3), before choosing which path to take. The speaker finishes the poem by apparently peering into the future, at which time he will be thinking of this choice and realize the one he took, the “one less traveled by” (line 19), “has made all the difference” in his life (line 20).This mostly leaves the reader with a very warm feeling and a positive outlook on life.
As I inferred earlier the casual reader who reads this poem usually understands the narrative to be positive in nature and that the speaker chose the more difficult path , despite the easier being more appealing, and that now that he has matured , he is pleased with the path that he has decided to take.So where exactly is the evidence for this in the poem?
Upon a closer examination of the poem we may see that things are not as they appear to be. The first thing I believe should be looked at is the choices that the speaker is faced with. The first is a path that is apparently pleasant and simple while the second is arduous and un- trodden. But upon a closer inspection, although the speaker says the second path, the one he took, “was grassy and wanted wear” (line 8), the two were not ,at all, so different. In fact he says the traffic and weather had “worn them really about the same” (line 10) and that at this time they “equally lay/in leaves no step had trodden black” (line 11-12). Which means that the speaker could not know what he faced in either direction and simply picked a path in order to continue his journey, not because he had a sense of what kind of future he will be facing.
The ending of the poem is open ended and doesn’t really support the positive happy ending most readers apply to it. When you look at the last line in the poem it is written in a future tense, not present, so the person reading the poem is not given clear picture of whether the speaker has finished his journey down the chosen path or not. Regardless, the speaker won’t be talking about the choice until “ages and ages hence” (line 17). That is when he will say he took the road “less traveled by,/and that has made all the difference” (line 19-20), which he will be telling “with a sigh” (line 16).
I believe the sigh is of great Importance in the poem because It could mean that the speaker is content, just as well as it could be a signal of regret(spark N). There is a weird sort of double meaning to it. This leads me to believe that just because the story has an apparent positive ring to it. That it does not necessarily mean that things have turned out well for the speaker. The author could be writing this in a time of deep regret from an unfortunate circumstance like a person in prison. If that is the case such a person would most likely be thinking about choices like those the speaker faces at the beginning.
In conclusion when a closer look is given to this poem it reveals a far darker look at life than the casual reader would realize. It shows us that we are all faced with that fork in the road at some point in our lives, we may not all choose the ‘Right button’ or ever know if we did. The same can be said for the speaker for all we know the other path that the speaker was given could have taken him to an even darker end, or exactly at the same place he was at the moment. What makes frost poem such a stunning classic is the double meaning behind his poem, not the apparently happy ending that has been tacked on to it by casual readers as its true and only meaning.
References
• Enotes. (2010, Febuary 02). Retrieved from http://www.enotes.com/road-not-taken/q-and-a/why-does-poet-descrice-wood-yellow-do-you-think-135239
• spark, N. (n.d.). Spark notes: Frost early poems. Retrieved from http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section7.rhtm
• Meyer, Michael. Poetry an Introduction. 5th. 1. Boston: BedfordStmartin, 2007. 348. Print.
• “The Road not taken (Poem).” Wikipedia. N.p., 08May2012. Web. 11 May 2012. .
• What does the color yellow mean in literature. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_the_color_yellow_mean_in_Literatur
• Websters Dictionary (2012)
