"The Road Not Taken"

Taking the poem literally, we find a man out for a walk in the woods. He comes upon a fork in the road, where two roads lead off into different directions. There is little difference between the roads in terms of appearance, although the one he decides to take appears to be slightly less traveled "Because it was grassy and wanted wear" and for that reason it has "perhaps the better claim" on him (Frost lines 7-8).

After saying this, however, the speaker adds again that there is not really a great deal of difference between them and that neither is well traveled. He tells himself, with some excitement (signified by the "Oh" and the exclamation point), that he will return another day and go down the road he has rejected.

Then he retreats from the excitement and the pledge to himself to return to go down the other road, and instead he realistically concludes that he will probably never come back and go down that first road, that his choice to go down the second road will lead on to other choices and other choices and on into the future, leaving the first road---like all other rejected choices---way in the past where it will remain.

. . .
icates that what is important is not the road he took but the roads he did not take. He is thinking about how his life might have been easier, or more comfortable in some way had he taken the road more traveled. At the same time, there is no sign that he regrets his decision---now or in the imagined future---but merely that he is aware, even at the moment of decision, that he has taken a small step which will change his life radically from what it would have otherwise been. Again, the fact that the road not taken is the road slightly more traveled suggests that it is a road which most people have chosen---a more conventional path through life, a safer life. There is a certain wistful longing for that road not taken, then, for the conventional life, in the speaker as he imagines himself in the future. The fact that the road which is slightly less traveled has a "better claim" on him shows that there was already in the speaker an affinity for the unconventional life. This allows us to fairly say that he had made earlier unconventional decisions which had made it more likely that he would take that road less traveled. It is also important that the road taken was only just barely less traveled than the road not taken. What this mea
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Robert Frost, slightly traveled, road traveled, conventional life, road slightly traveled, leaves third stanza, Robert Road, future telling story, unconventional life, fork road, road roads, technical elements, pattern poem, telling story, future telling,
Approximate Word count = 1633
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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