Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken.

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Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken : Benedict Connolly 5ND : 2.2.03

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 had 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.

‘The Road Not Taken’ is about choices. Frost tells us of a choice he had to make in life and how he came to his final decision. We are presented with a situation in a wood where the poet must take one of two paths. It does not particularly matter what the decision was, indeed it could be a sequence of choices from entirely life changing ones to minor and relatively ineffectual ones. However, Frost’s ultimate thoughts on these decisions are vital to the poem’s meaning. Frost realises that it does not matter which path he took provided he took the one which he believed to be the best one for him at the time.  

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Frost chooses an aesthetically pleasing setting: a ‘yellow’ wood. The quiet leafy space, reminiscent of Frost’s native Vermont, is well-chosen. The presence of nature and old trees has implications of wisdom. Also, Frost is alone in the wood and the lack of human interference in his decisions not only simplifies the situation, but suggests that Frost was not influenced by others when making decisions. The natural setting also makes the poem universal.

Frost describes how he perceives one path to be worn less than the other. However, in retrospect, there was little difference between them.

‘Though as for ...

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