The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Essay

Born on March 26th, 1874, Robert Frost is perhaps the best American poet to have walked the face of this earth. Frost's poems were popular primarily because of the approach he took while coming up with them. Unlike other poets who complicated poetry with fantasy and science fiction, Frost decided to expound on the everyday situations making his poems very relatable to the common man. Through his poems, the realistic life of the typical New England citizen was depicted; a factor that made his poems so relatable and likable. Not forgetting his unquestionable mastery of language and proficiency in the use of stylistic devices throughout his poems. To date, Frost holds a very special and unique and irreplaceable place in American letters and world's poetry at large. Although the 19th century was undoubtedly his era, it is quite impossible to refer to Frost as anything that a modern-day poet. Modernism was depicted in many of his poems making it difficult to categorize him in the traditional poetry. The four-time Pulitzer Prize winner was a masterpiece and the world of poetry lost a great deal when he passed away on January 29th, 1963. However, of all the poems that Frost wrote during his lifetime, there is one that outclasses the rest. One that is my absolute favorite of all time and it communicates to me at a higher level; "The Road Not Taken." This paper seeks to analyze "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.

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Constituted of four stanzas each made up of five lines, this is perhaps the most popular and familiar among Frost's poems. An old saying goes that simplicity is an art and Frost seems to have understood this quite clearly. The simplicity illustrated in the poem could as well be the reason behind its popularity. There is no use of big words and vocabulary that might send the reader to the dictionary after every stanza making it easy to understand and relate to. However, the simplicity of the poem has led to very many different interpretations and misinterpretations as well. Some of the variations in interpretations lie on the fact that different speakers gain different opinions and feelings towards the speaker in the poem. For that reason, it is very easy as well to gain a wrong interpretation of the poem. Frost knew this himself and in 1961, he asserted that the poem is very tricky.

Suspense and indecision are the two most dominant themes throughout the poem. The title itself creates a certain level of suspense to the reader. On reading the title, the reader is immediately put in an inquisitive position about the road not taken. For instance, the reader might want to know what it is about the road that makes it not preferred, whether it poses some dangers, and what are some of the dangers affiliated with taking that road. These are some of the questions that come to a first-time reader of the poem. Frost further enhances suspense when he writes the poem in the first person. The reader is left to decipher whether Frost is the speaker of the poem or the speaker is a fictional character that was specifically created for the purposes of the poem; persona. Indecision comes in when evaluating the nature of the speaker. From the poem, the speaker does not seem to sure which road to take and whichever road he/she ended up going, would be left wishing they took the other road.

Vivid description is employed in this poem and this can be evidenced by the very first stanza. Frost describes in detail the road that the speaker was taking. The weather and climate are auspiciously described as cool and autumn respectively. The autumn season is characterized by fall of leaves. Before such leaves begin to fall, they first turn their color from green to red, yellow and brown eventually giving in. The speaker is in a forest and the color of leaves further explains the season. The speaker is on a stroll before he comes at a crossroad where he has to choose between two paths. There is a considerable amount of time that is taken before the speaker can decide on which path to take. At one moment, the speaker wishes he could take both paths but if wishes were horses...The fact that the speaker could not decide on the road to take is suggestive that he had never been there before.

The first stanza is symbolic of the choices we make in life. The decisions that we make in life are never simple, and we confront a large number of them in our lifetime. The ballad "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost is a first individual story sonnet in which Frost himself can be viewed as the speaker. A man strolling in the forested areas is looked with the decision of two streets in which to take. "He might want to investigate the two streets. He discloses to himself that he will investigate one and after that return and investigate the other, yet he realizes that he will likely be not able to do as such" (Arp 808). Through Frost's utilization of pictures and images, he can pass on his topic that the decisions a man makes in life are eventually in charge of their future, yet a man can never backpedal to the past and encounter different potential outcomes.

Conclusion

As Frost starts his ballad about the street he didn't take, he is remaining in the forested areas taking a gander at two unique streets that separate in a yellow wood. "The two streets that "veered in a yellow wood" speak to a basic decision between two lifestyles" (Ogilvie 3). In the event that he goes down one, it leads in a single course, on the off chance that he takes the other, it drives him someplace unique. "Words are images of ideas, which have gained implication of feeling notwithstanding their indication of the idea." Frost utilizes these words, around two distinct streets as an image, of the decisions we make in our regular daily existences. The intersection speaks to the speaker's experience of choosing from two ways a bearing that will influence whatever remains of his life. "Furthermore, sad I couldn't travel both," Frost goes ahead to state; in light of the fact that the speaker wishes that he could encounter the two ways. In the following three lines Frost appears to give us some counsel on settling on decisions. He proposes that we should take a gander at the two decisions deliberately, before we pick one, to look down the two ways to the extent we can, and attempt to make. Hence, the saying look before you leap.