Ambiguity in Robert Frost's Works
Ivy Miller November 10, 2012
Introduction to Poetry Section 01
Ambiguity and Dark Undertones in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost and his poetry were adored by the American public, as both were often thought to embody deeply cherished American values such as freedom, independence, nobility and rising to the occasion. The narrator of Frost’s works are often presumed to be Frost himself, as his public audience idolized him for standing for these American values – values which seemed to be the main meaning of his poems. A predisposition such as this one leads to assumptions about the poem’s meaning which are based off of preexisting positive notions society held for him. In other words, many people interpreted Frost’s poems to be just as sincere as Frost seemed as a person. However, Frost creates a character as the speaker, thus unbinding himself from whatever message the speaker conveys. He uses his characters or speakers as tools to demonstrate and explore the ways in which people delude themselves. In “The Road Not Taken”, the speaker is forced into deciding between two metaphorical “roads” to travel down, and wanting only to take both, he inevitably feels doubtful whether or not he chose the best one. Frost travels into the human mind in this poem, portraying how his speaker is an unreliable narrator to compensate for his anxiety.
For means of comparison, the speaker in William Wordsworth’s poem, “Surprised by Joy”, can safely be assumed to be Wordsworth himself because the loss of his daughter, seen in the poem, was an unfortunate reality for the poet. Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, in addition to many of his other works, provides no such indication of a link between the speaker and himself. Therefore, attaching Frost and his “American values” to his poems inevitably misleads the reader from seeing past the surface level of the text.
“The Road Not Taken” is one of Frost’s most commonly
Introduction to Poetry Section 01
Ambiguity and Dark Undertones in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost and his poetry were adored by the American public, as both were often thought to embody deeply cherished American values such as freedom, independence, nobility and rising to the occasion. The narrator of Frost’s works are often presumed to be Frost himself, as his public audience idolized him for standing for these American values – values which seemed to be the main meaning of his poems. A predisposition such as this one leads to assumptions about the poem’s meaning which are based off of preexisting positive notions society held for him. In other words, many people interpreted Frost’s poems to be just as sincere as Frost seemed as a person. However, Frost creates a character as the speaker, thus unbinding himself from whatever message the speaker conveys. He uses his characters or speakers as tools to demonstrate and explore the ways in which people delude themselves. In “The Road Not Taken”, the speaker is forced into deciding between two metaphorical “roads” to travel down, and wanting only to take both, he inevitably feels doubtful whether or not he chose the best one. Frost travels into the human mind in this poem, portraying how his speaker is an unreliable narrator to compensate for his anxiety.
For means of comparison, the speaker in William Wordsworth’s poem, “Surprised by Joy”, can safely be assumed to be Wordsworth himself because the loss of his daughter, seen in the poem, was an unfortunate reality for the poet. Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, in addition to many of his other works, provides no such indication of a link between the speaker and himself. Therefore, attaching Frost and his “American values” to his poems inevitably misleads the reader from seeing past the surface level of the text.
“The Road Not Taken” is one of Frost’s most commonly