While we hesitate, nothing significant happens. Morning, again, reminds us of good things – awakening and youth, light and hope.ĭifficult choice causes painful doubts however, it also transforms life. The traveler mention he confronted the fork “in the morning”. Against such a background, the speaker’s farewell to the road he hasn’t taken appears solemn. On the one hand, this period evokes a sense of transience – summer gives way to winter on the other hand, it is the most beautiful and joyous part of autumn. Leaves are yellow in September or October. The wood could be associated with dark depths of consciousness, if it weren’t that distinctive color. The first line informs us that “two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. While demonstrating how the speaker is going through a difficult stretch of his life’s path, Frost unobtrusively makes some important references to the time and the place of action. Though the author develops a rather tragic theme in The Road Not Taken, the poem doesn’t depress us otherwise, it heartens us.
It’s worth pausing here to focus on an interesting thing. Every choice excludes all the others, and man cannot change this rule. The Road Not Taken is not about freethinking or individualism it is about the nature of choice. So, in the last stanza, the speaker sarcastically comments on his own future behavior. I am sure, you know how the psychological mechanism of rationalization works. To console himself, the traveler will have to compromise with his memory and retrospectively rationalize the decision had made. The road not taken – an alternate version of his destiny – will beckon him (remember the title of the poem – it is the main key to the concept!). The walker realizes: when returning to the fork turns out to be impossible, he’ll doubt whether his fateful choice was right. After a while, he admits again:īut this assertion is completely at odds with the ending of the poem – the speaker “shall be telling (…) with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence” that he preferred the “less traveled” way… Initially, Frost’s hiker supposes that one road perhaps is slightly grassier than the other, yet already a second later he has a closer look at the fork and sees there is no substantial difference between the two roads – “the passing there had worn them really about the same”. Turn your attention to the second and the third stanzas.
Frost road not taken how to#
How to Understand the True Meaning of the Poem? Relaxed, we lazily catch the main twists of the narrative: “two roads diverged” – okay, “I stood and looked down one”, then “took the other, (…) because it was grassy and wanted wear” – okay, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” – oh, here it is, the moral of the fairytale! Do not follow the crowd, choose your own path even if this path seems unsafe – what a great message for today!Ĭongratulations, we have fallen into the trap of superficial reading. The unhurried alternation of long, perfectly-rhymed lines lulls us. The similarity is reinforced by the smooth narrative rhythm. Second, the people who love and reference this masterpiece mostly get it wrong.įrom the very beginning, this poem artfully pretends to be a fairytale: the images (a forest, a lonely traveler faced a dilemma) and the stylized language of The Road Not Taken are typical for a traditional story. Its final lines are used in advertisements and movies. Audio recordings of The Road Not Taken on YouTube get as many views and likes as some music hits do. The poem The Road Not Taken is remarkable for two reasons.įirst, it’s incredibly popular.
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