The Analysis of Robert Frost’s Poem, “The Road Not Taken”

    "The Road Not Taken" of Robert Frost is poem with a full sense of life. All of us in this life must be faced on choices that we don't know which one the best for us before we get into those choices. Sometimes, we make some mistakes because we don't choose the correct path, but we can't go back or turn back the time, in fact that we have walked so far.

    In the line of "And sorry I could not travel both", assumes that it demonstrates Frost's feeling because this line is written in point of view first person. There is no regular pattern of meter in this poem that makes it remains multi interpretable to its readers.

    When "imagery may be defined as the representation through language of sense experience" (Perrine, 1977: 50), Victor Shklovsky, one of the leader of Russians Formalist said that "Art is thinking in images," and "Poetry is a special way of thinking; it is precisely, a way of thinking in images" (Shklovsky in Con Davis, 1984: 261). We can find two aesthetic visual imageries in "The Road Not Taken", they are "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," and "Because it was grassy and wanted wear."

    To make the analysis clearer, I will rewrite the entire Robert Frost's Poem, "The Road Not Taken" on this blog.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step hade trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how
way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

    Every one of us is a traveler who sometimes has to choose the roads to continue our journey, journey of life. It is always difficult to make decision because we are worry about the lost of opportunities that will be missed out on. There is a sense of regret before the choice is made, but it is impossible to travel down every path.

    The traveler "Looks down as far as I could" when try to make a decision. The road that will be chosen leads to be strange, and it is the same as the others. As much he may set his eyes to see as far the road, he can never see the destination in it that will lead him.

    So, the traveler "Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim." What made it has the better claim is "It was grassy and wanted wear." It was something different because most of the people took the other path, but he took "The road less traveled by" instead. The fact that the travelers took this path over the more popular and secure one indicates his personality. He doesn't want to follow the crowd and insists to his own decision, what is new and challenging.

    "And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black" means that the leaves has covered the ground and since the time had fallen no one had yet to pass by on this road.

    The desire to travel down both paths is expressed in the line "I kept the first for another day," but "knowing how way leads on to way." Nevertheless, he realizes that the decision is for long and he says that, "I doubt if I should ever come back." It means that what he chose at the time will affect every single choice that he makes afterward. Once you performed something, it is possibility that could change the whole of your life, and you can't turn back and it can't be undone.

    At the last stanza of the poem, there is a line "Somewhere ages and ages," it shows the other sense of regret that he never gone back and traveling down the roads he did not take. Yet he remains proud on his decision and he recognizes that it was the path that he chose that made him turn out the way and what was most important, what really made the difference, is that he did what he wanted, even if it meant taking the road less traveled. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be the same man he is now.

References:

Con Davis, Robert, and Ronald Schleifer, Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies, (New York & London: Longman, 1984)

Perrine, Laurence, Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry 5^th Edition, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1977)

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