THE ROAD NOT TAKEN ROBERT FROST

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a classic poem that explores the theme of making choices and the
consequences that follow. It presents a scenario where the speaker encounters a fork in the road and must
decide which path to take. The poem delves into the internal conflict and contemplation that arise when faced
with such a decision.

Frost vividly describes the two paths, one of which is "worn" and the other "less traveled by." He personifies the
paths as having "yellow wood" and "undergrowth," creating a distinct imagery that enhances the reader's
understanding of the choices presented.

The speaker's contemplation highlights the significance of the decision, as he weighs the pros and cons of each
path. He acknowledges that both choices have their own merits and challenges, and he grapples with the
uncertainty of the outcomes.

Ultimately, the speaker chooses the "road less traveled by," emphasizing the importance of individuality and the
courage to deviate from the conventional path. This decision, though uncertain, holds the promise of unique
experiences and personal growth.

"The Road Not Taken" serves as a powerful reminder of the choices we face in life and the impact they have on
our journey. It encourages readers to embrace the unknown, take risks, and forge their own paths, even if they
The poem describes a person standing at a fork
may be less familiar or more challenging.
in the road in a wood, unsure which one to take. Frost uses the road as a
metaphor for the journey of life. Each decision we make is like a turn in the
road, and choosing what to do with our lives can be like choosing which turn to
take at a fork in the road.

 ““The Road Not Taken” Summary

o The speaker, walking through a forest whose leaves have turned yellow in autumn, comes
to a fork in the road. The speaker, regretting that he or she is unable to travel by both roads
(since he or she is, after all, just one person), stands at the fork in the road for a long time
and tries to see where one of the paths leads. However, the speaker can't see very far
because the forest is dense and the road is not straight.

The speaker takes the other path, judging it to be just as good a choice as the first, and
supposing that it may even be the better option of the two, since it is grassy and looks less
worn than the other path. Though, now that the speaker has actually walked on the second
road, he or she thinks that in reality the two roads must have been more or less equally
worn-in.

Reinforcing this statement, the speaker recalls that both roads were covered in leaves,
which had not yet been turned black by foot traffic. The speaker exclaims that he or she is
in fact just saving the first road, and will travel it at a later date, but then immediately
 contradicts him or herself with the acknowledgement that, in life, one road tends to lead
onward to another, so it's therefore unlikely that he or she will ever actually get a chance to
return to that first road.

The speaker imagines him or herself in the distant future, recounting, with a sigh, the story
of making the choice of which road to take. Speaking as though looking back on his or her
life from the future, the speaker states that he or she was faced with a choice between two
roads and chose to take the road that was less traveled, and the consequences of that
decision have made all the difference in his or her life.
made all the Summary
The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally
overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another
day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in
the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road.

in his oForm
“The Road Not Taken” consists of four stanzas of five lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB; the rhymes are
strict and masculine, with the notable exception of the last line (we do not usually stress the -
ence of difference). There are four stressed syllables per line, varying on an iambic tetrameter base.
Analysis
This has got to be among the best-known, most-often-misunderstood poems on the planet. Several
generations of careless readers have turned it into a piece of Hallmark happy-graduation-son, seize-the-
future puffery. Cursed with a perfect marriage of form and content, arresting phrase wrought from simple
words, and resonant metaphor, it seems as if “The Road Not Taken” gets memorized without really being
read. For this it has died the cliché’s un-death of trivial immortality.

But you yourself can resurrect it from zombie-hood by reading it—not with imagination, even, but simply
with accuracy. Of the two roads the speaker says “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.”
In fact, both roads “that morning lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.” Meaning: Neither of the roads is
less traveled by. These are the facts; we cannot justifiably ignore the reverberations they send through the
easy aphorisms of the last two stanzas.

r her liOne of the attractions of the poem is its archetypal dilemma, one that we instantly recognize because
each of us encounters it innumerable times, both literally and figuratively. Paths in the woods and forks in
roads are ancient and deep-seated metaphors for the lifeline, its crises and decisions. Identical forks, in
particular, symbolize for us the nexus of free will and fate: We are free to choose, but we do not really know
beforehand what we are choosing between. Our route is, thus, determined by an accretion of choice and
chance, and it is impossible to separate the two.

This poem does not advise. It does not say, “When you come to a fork in the road, study the footprints and
take the road less traveled by” (or even, as Yogi Berra enigmatically quipped, “When you come to a fork in
the road, take it”). Frost’s focus is more complicated. First, there is no less-traveled road in this poem; it
isn’t even an option. Next, the poem seems more concerned with the question of how the concrete present
(yellow woods, grassy roads covered in fallen leaves) will look from a future vantage point.
The ironic tone is inescapable: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence.” The
speaker anticipates his own future insincerity—his need, later on in life, to rearrange the facts and inject a
dose of Lone Ranger into the account. He knows that he will be inaccurate, at best, or hypocritical, at worst,
when he holds his life up as an example. In fact, he predicts that his future self will betray this moment of
decision as if the betrayal were inevitable. This realization is ironic and poignantly pathetic. But the “sigh”
is critical. The speaker will not, in his old age, merely gather the youth about him and say, “Do what I did,
kiddies. I stuck to my guns, took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Rather, he
may say this, but he will sigh first; for he won’t believe it himself. Somewhere in the back of his mind will
remain the image of yellow woods and two equally leafy paths.
Ironic as it is, this is also a poem infused with the anticipation of remorse. Its title is not “The Road Less
Traveled” but “The Road Not Taken.” Even as he makes a choice (a choice he is forced to make if does not
want to stand forever in the woods, one for which he has no real guide or definitive basis for decision-
making), the speaker knows that he will second-guess himself somewhere down the line—or at the very
least he will wonder at what is irrevocably lost: the impossible, unknowable Other Path. But the nature of
the decision is such that there is no Right Path—just the chosen path and the other path. What are sighed for
ages and ages hence are not so much the wrong decisions as the moments of decision themselves—moments
that, one atop the other, mark the passing of a life. This is the more primal strain of remorse.

Thus, to add a further level of irony, the theme of the poem may, after all, be “seize the day.” But a more
nuanced carpe diem, if you please.
Structure[edit]
The poem consists of four stanzas of five lines each. With the rhyme scheme as ABAAB, the first line rhymes
with the third and fourth, and the second line rhymes with the fifth. The meter is iambic tetrameter, with each line
having four two-syllable feet, though in almost every line, in different positions, an iamb is replaced with
an anapest.[citation needed]
Rhythm[edit]
"The Road Not Taken" reads conversationally, beginning as a kind of photographic depiction of a quiet moment
in yellow woods (imagery). The variation of its rhythm gives naturalness, a feeling of thought occurring
spontaneously, affecting the reader's sense of expectation.[5] In one of the few lines containing strictly iambs, the
more regular rhythm supports the idea of a turning towards an acceptance of a kind of reality: "Though as for
that the passing there … " In the final line, the way the rhyme and rhythm work together is significantly different,
and catches the reader off guard.[6]
"The Road Not Taken" is one of Frost's most popular works. Yet, it is a frequently misunderstood poem, [7] often
read simply as a poem that champions the idea of "following your own path". Actually, it expresses
some irony regarding such an idea.[8][9] A 2015 critique in the Paris Review by David Orr described the
misunderstanding this way:[7]
The poem's speaker tells us he "shall be telling", at some point in the future, of how he took the road less
traveled … 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.
The two roads are interchangeable.
Orr concluded by noting: "It is a poem about the necessity of choosing that somehow, like its author, never
makes a choice itself—that instead repeatedly returns us to the same enigmatic, leaf-shadowed crossroads." [7]
Frost wrote the poem as a joke for his friend Edward Thomas, who was often indecisive about which route to
take when the two went walking.[10] A New York Times book review on Brian Hall's 2008 biography Fall of
Frost states: "Whichever way they go, they're sure to miss something good on the other path." [11] Regarding the
"sigh" that is mentioned in the last stanza, it may be seen as an expression of regret or of satisfaction. However,
there is significance in the difference between what the speaker has just said of the two roads, and what he will
say in the future.[12] According to Lawrance Thompson, Frost's biographer, as Frost was once about to read the
poem, he commented to his audience, "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem—very tricky",
perhaps intending to suggest the poem's ironic possibilities.[13][14]
Thompson suggests that the poem's narrator is "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice
made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected." [13] Thompson also says that when
introducing the poem in readings, Frost would say that the speaker was based on his friend Thomas. In Frost's
words, Thomas was "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard
on himself that way."[2]