Frost

The Road Not Taken

In line one, Frost introduces the elements of his primary metaphor, the diverging roads. Lines two to three expresses the speaker's disappointment with his human limitations; he must make a choice. The choice is not easy, since "long I stood" before coming to a decision. Lines four and five examine the path as best the narrator can. However his vision is limited because the path bends and is covered over. These lines indicate that although the speaker would like to acquire more information, he is prevented from doing so because of the nature of his environment. In the following three lines, lines six through eight, the speaker indicates that the second path is a more attractive choice because it appears as though nobody has ventured down it recently. However, he remains ambivalent, since the traveled path is "just as fair.?Although the poet breaks for a new stanza after line 10, the comparison of the paths continues in lines nine through twelve. Here, the speaker states that the paths are "really about the same." Neither path has been traveled lately. Although he's searching for a clear logical reason to choose a single path, not one presents itself. In lines thirteen through fifteen, the speaker makes his decision. He tries to rationalize that he will be able to traverse both paths one day. However, he is quick to dismiss his hopes. Ending line thirteen, the exclamation point conveys excitement, but that excitement is quickly undercut by the admission contained in the following lines. In the final four lines, the only stanza beginning with a new sentence, the tone clearly shifts. The speaker imagines himself in the future, discussing his life. What he suggests, here, though, appears to contradict what he has said earlier. At the end of the poem, in the future, he will claim that the paths were different from each other and that he, courageous, did not choose the conventional one.
Frost's quarrel with the world is apparent in this poem. The... [continues]

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