Poem Analysis Example

“The Road not Taken” is an analogy discussing about a person who made an important, but irreversible decision of life in the past. The poem symbolizes how that person (the speaker) chose the risky decision that has a large impact in that person’s life. In fact, later the person feel uncertain if the decision was right.
The “yellow wood” depicts the condition of carefulness and privacy. The decision that the speaker made particularly talks about a long-term private life decision. The speaker uses the color yellow to show that he is very careful in choosing the options as yellow is a color usually used in caution sign and traffic light as a warning for people to be careful. Also, “Wood” or forest is indeed an isolated area. “The diverged road” takes place in a wood explaining how the decision relates to the private and isolated part of the speaker’s life.
In fact, this decision is actually irreversible. The last two lines of the third stanza tells that the speaker finally began to realize that he cannot go back to this condition facing the same choices again. “Yet” refers to the word “nevertheless” tell how the speaker does finally change the way s/he think. In addition, the world “doubt” shows uncertainty of the speaker and as whole states that the speaker is no longer willing to come back. Furthermore, there are some metaphors illustrating how the speaker wants to be different by the taking unusual choice. In fact, in a confident tone, the speaker “took the one less traveled”. When a road less travelled, it means that only few people want to pass there, whether because it is terrible or too hard to be passed.
However, the poem also tries to tell that it is actually so hard for the speaker to finally make his/her decision. S/he, in a regretful tone, feels sorry that s/he cannot manage to have them both explained his/her statement “ sorry, I could not travel both.” S/he uses the word sorry as a symbol of regret. In fact, the speaker thinks that both options