The Road Not Taken

Choose Your Own Path In life, everyone has choices they face on a day to day basis. Each choice may lead to another choice, and they can result in a positive or a negative consequence that shapes who the person is today. In the poem titled “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost sets up a situation where the narrator faces a dilemma of whether to settle upon one path or another. By using the elements of poem, Frost shows the train of thought and how the thoughts developed to make a decision between the two roads. First of all, one of the key elements used in this poem by Frost is imagery. As an illustration, the author states that the narrator “…looked down one as far as [he] could / To where it bent in the undergrowth;” (4-5). By using the words
The poem is a lyric poem, which means that it is in first person and the author uses “I” in the poem to represent the narrator. For instance, “And be one traveler, long I stood” (3). The poem is about one person; however by using the vague word “I,” the author created the effect of any reader being about to relate to the poem. This effect also translates into a deeper and more applicable meaning. And that is that the reader should also take a path that is less traveled because at the end of the poem, the author shows that taking the less traveled path made the difference for the narrator. In other words, take the action taken less often by
Notably in the first stanza, the narrator says that he was “… sorry that [he] could not travel both [roads]” (3). In this quote, the author is asserting that the narrator considered both paths equal and did not want to take just one path and miss out on the other. Then the author goes on to the second stanza and describes the positive aspects of the path that is less taken. He says that the path wanted to be worn and seemed better by just observing it. Moving on to the third stanza, that narrator decides to save the first path for later, while doubting himself that he will come back. Finally, in the last stanza, the narrator asserts himself that he took the right path. By using the form, Frost paints a bigger picture of life that everyone experiences when they are determining which option is best for them. The experience develops just as Frost structured the poem. First, a person looks at the overall view of the two choices. Then the person goes on to see the benefit of one choice, which in turn leads to abandoning the other choice. Lastly, the person affirms that he made the right decision so that he does not have any