Robert Faggen states “This psychological representation of the developmental principle of divergence strikes to the core of Darwinian theory. One choice is considered default and natural the other unnatural and deviant. By presenting the two choices he may be implying that one is wrong and the other right, or that one is superior to the other. The concept of two choices is a thought-provoking one. “And that has made all the difference.” Other Symbols in “The Road Not Taken” The decision is indeed unique, this is why he states: ![]() Sometimes life is beyond logic, categorization and mathematical division. What the poet shows through “The Road Not Taken” is that decisions in life cannot be specifically organized into logical alternatives or mathematical units. Therefore, he eventually took the middle path. He categorically states that he kept the first for another day. It implies that he did not take the second, as that was the one commonly used. But he also mentions that the path was worn out due to constant use and toward the end of the poem he mentions that he took the ‘road less travelled’. It is generally conceived that he took the second road. He first ruminates over traveling on the first road, and then talks of the second road. He lives a practical life, yet his imagination manifests itself in his writing.Īt the outset he comprehends that he is sorry could not travel both : “And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler.” His first impression is that it is not practical. ![]() “The Road Not Taken” may also allude to Frost’s shifting between imagination and reality. Had he taken any one of the popular roads, the poem would be entitled “The Road Taken”. The greatest evidence for this is Frost himself: poet and teacher. Thus, he does not take either of the two roads described, but forges his own path. He finally arrives at the decision that one can be a poet and yet teach one can be a teacher and yet philosophize. In the prescribed poem, he ruminates over which vocation to pursue, that of a poet or a teacher. Rather, he traverses the middle path.įrost was always caught between two worlds: that of being a teacher and a poet between reality and imagination. However, the title puts more emphasis on the idea that Frost had not taken any of the specified roads. The popular perception of the poem is that Robert Frost takes one of the two roads he describes. The road in question is situated in a forest. The crossroad functions as an evocative metaphor for a vital decision. The metaphor of the road is used persistently in the poem, and is therefore an extended metaphor. However, it signifies not only journey but also the destination. The symbol of a road has been predominantly used to indicate the journey of Life. He had a life different from other and he remembers it with a pleasant sigh.The Crossroad Symbolic of the Turning Point in Frost’s Life So my interpretation of the last stanza is that the choice he made was a good one. But the thing is that a sigh can also be positive and so can difference. ![]() In the last stanza he goes (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 made all the difference) this is usually interpreted as if he regrets his choice, because teachers love to be depressing. His life will already be changed because of what he chose. And he knows that making a choice he won't be able to come back to make a different choice. This choosing of roads is actually a metaphor for a life choice. Then he goes on (oh I kept the first for another day.) and he says he wanted to take both roads but he knows he cant do that. But in the third stanza (both that morning equally lay.) he still says both roads are equal, one is not better than the other. He was not another sheep following the crowd. One of the interpretations(that we also did in school) is that he took the road that not many people took. I think this poem counts as one of the most misinterpreted poems because people cant agree on what Frost tried to say.
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