The poem The Road Not Taken is about the one thing that every living human being will and does encounter, multiple times through out life, it is the miracle of being able to choose. With that choice we must also face the fact that we can never go back and explore the other road not taken. Some choices are easier to choose while other takes some contemplating and time to resolve. But when it is all said and done and we have made our choice, there is still the road we didnt choose and often times we wonder about the road not taken.
In the first stanza is a place where two roads diverged which represents the encounter of having to choose from two paths a direction that will dictate the rest of ones life. When faced with decisions, man has to weigh his options carefully to make a more efficient choice. At the split in the road, the speaker looks down both of the paths to see what each of the paths will bring. The speakers sight is limited; his eyes can only see the path until it bends into the undergrowth. This is symbolic of people trying to foresee what each choice might bring, but our presage is limited, thus the representation of the undergrowth. But all that is seen is that both diverge into a “yellow wood” and appear to be “about the same”.
The first of the two paths is the more common route whereas the other less traveled path, “wanted wear. ” In this Frost brings up the conflict of whether to take the more easy way, the path more commonly traveled, or the way that is more complicated and not as easy to foresee the destination in which is the road less traveled. Choosing the already known easy path in which many people choose reassures that the outcome will be predictable. While choosing the “less traveled” road represents the chance of facing a more difficult path in life in hopes to achieve a more satisfactory life. The choice is made after much contemplation, and the choice is to take the road less traveled.
As he is going down that road he has chosen, he still wonders and longs to travel the road not taken. Even when he says to himself in the third stanza that he will keep the first path for another day, he knows that he will not have the opportunity to come back, because way leads on to way. We are shown in this poem that we are limited to explore all of lifes different possibilities. As in In Hardwood Groves we see that the only possibility for the leaves to return is to decay into the ground yet if they could choose and would choose not to decay then they would not be able to return.
We see in the end of The Road not Taken there is a sigh, a sigh that has come from years later looking back and remember the two choices and choosing the harder one and that making all of the difference in the life lead. Frost shows his satisfaction for enduring the uncommon route, but at the same time he “sighs” with lamentation, wondering what he may have missed on the other road. As successful lifes turnouts may be, there is always regret wondering how another path taken in life brings about other experiences and other opportunities in life. At the end of the poem Riders frost says, We have ideas yet that we havent tried. Sometimes we will never be able to try them and that is the road not taken. The poem The Road Not Taken can be interpreted as the universal dilemma of encountering two similar choices.
In the beginning when we look at them they appear to be similar but as time progresses and we go deeper and deeper down the path we see that they begin to contrast each other as they go off on their separate ways. Faced with very similar choices we try to examine what they have to offer for us, but often we are unable to see the results. We can choose to go the .
