Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

In Sound and Sense, Laurence Perrine (1982) maintains that "A symbol may be roughly defined as something that means more than what it is" (76). The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost embodies one of the most familiar symbols of human existence - a road not taken that stands for the choices we have left unmade in life. The theme of the poem is illustrated and reinforced by Frost's use of symbolism, imagery, and emotion. This analysis will discuss the theme of The Road Not Taken and how it is developed in the poem.

Robert Frost's most well-known poem, The Road Not Taken, uses symbols in the form of two divergent paths in the woods. These paths symbolize the existential nature of human existence. Existentialists recognize the fact that human destiny is totally based on human choice and action. Each choice and action made by the individual will result in a separate, different, and necessarily limiting outcome. The outcome is necessarily limiting, because each choice we make prevents us from making to one degree or another other choices. Frost's poem beautifully symbolizes this dilemma. The poem begins by describing the wooded setting in front of the speaker, one that presents him with "two roads diverged" (Frost 1919, 1). While initially we may feel the speaker is literally describing two roads in the woods, by the end of the poem we come to see these roads symbolize the limiting and personal nature of human choices, "I took the one less traveled by, /

Related Essays

The Road Not Taken This paper is an analysis and evaluation of Robert Frost=s lyrical poem, AThe Road Not Taken.@ This poem takes a very simple moment and turns it into a .... (1130 5 )

Memory in Song Lyrics .... New England poet, Robert Frost, beautifully captured the essence of .... Well, I'ma runnin' down the road, tryin' to .... loosely at his side, Yesterday?s paper telling .... (2502 10 )

Roads Songs as Metaphors for Human Memory .... New England poet, Robert Frost, beautifully captured the essence of .... Well, I'ma runnin' down the road, tryin' to .... loosely at his side, Yesterday?s paper telling .... (2517 10 )

Capital Punishment in the US Capital Punishment in the United .... Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 US 815 (1988). Vasquez v. Harris, 112 S.Ct. .... Frost, E. (1993, January). .... Public Policy Lessons from the Robert Alton Harris Case. .... (2911 12 )

ear as attractive but whose outcomes also remain unknown. Both roads look about as fair as one another, though one is a little grassier and wants wear. Even so, the speaker informs us, "Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (Frost 1919, 1). In the third stanza, the speaker's emotions overtake him somewhat as he basically plunges into life and makes his choice. He exclaims, "Oh, I marked the first for another day!" (Frost 1919, 1). By using this form of punctuation, the poet reinforces the often poignant and emotional aspects of making life choices as fragile human beings with little ability to predict their outcome. The speaker also shows more sadness over his inability to follow two decisions at once, mirroring his sadness over his inability to walk two roads at once in the initial stanza, "Yet knowing how way leads on to way / I doubted if I should ever come back" (Frost 1919, 1). The images in The Road Not Taken lend to the emotions experienced by the speaker as he comes to the recognition and awareness of what the roads symbolically means to him and his life. As X. J. Kennedy (1982) explains, "Though the term image suggests a thing seen, when speaking of images in poetry we gener

Category: Literature - R