It never mentioned how many travelers completed both paths as opposed to turning back before they saw what the better path had in store for them. Just because both paths had been “passed really about the same” doesn’t mean that they were both equally challenging. Both decisions might have seemed identical, but there’s always one path that is favorable for prosperity. Similarly, in life not everything is clear, it’s tempting to make hasty decisions as opposed to contemplative ones. The traveler had to leave things up to his conscious and just hope that the decision he made wouldn’t be regretted. With this information the reader can conclude that that decision making isn’t always cut and dry. This helps explain how both paths were physically indistinguishable. “Because it was grassy and wanted wear, In leaves no step had trodden black, Though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same”. The imagery in The Road Not Taken contributes to the importance of making decisions and its effect on life because without the vivid forest description used it wouldn’t make sense why choosing a path was so hard. The Road Not Taken, Robert’s use of imagery, symbolism, and extended metaphors show the importance of making decisions and it’s lasting effect. Thus, the decisions we make should be thoroughly thought out like the traveler even though the road less taken isn’t an easy road, although it’s the most beneficial road. ![]() This poem helps the reader grasp how every decision matters and once the decision is made there’s no turning back. Similarly, in life decisions must be made, no matter how hard the fork in the road seems. This leaves the traveler torn, but he knows that ultimately the decision has to be made. The traveler knows that there is an important decision to make, thus he tries to compare both paths, but ultimately realizes that they’re physically equal. The traveler is now faced with the decision of which path to take. During his journey through the woods, he comes across a fork in the road. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is a poem about a traveler in the woods on a beautiful autumn day. What a delightfully meta realization to understand in adulthood that I was wrong all along.Most people have heard at least once in their life that hard choice is the right choice and this seems to be the case for the traveler. I remember reading this poem in high school and, at a surface level, believing it represented all the best parts about American individualism. ![]() “The Road Not Taken” may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, “the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. ![]() ![]() The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. The two roads are interchangeable.Īccording to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem’s speaker tells us he “shall be telling,” at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled by, yet he has already admitted that the two paths “equally lay / In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. Most readers consider “The Road Not Taken” to be a paean to triumphant self-assertion (“I took the one less traveled by”), but the literal meaning of the poem’s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation. įrost’s poem turns this expectation on its head. It’s worth pausing here to underscore a truth so obvious that it is often taken for granted: Most widely celebrated artistic projects are known for being essentially what they purport to be. This is the most remarkable thing about “The Road Not Taken”-not its immense popularity (which is remarkable enough), but the fact that it is popular for what seem to be the wrong reasons. Here’s David Orr, writing about “The Road Not Taken” for The Paris Review in 2015: Here it is in its entirety:ĭespite its popularity, it is also one of the most widely misinterpreted poems. Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” is one of the most popular poems of the 20th century.
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