essays
Use of Nature in The Road Not Taken
In most poetry and literature people can pick out certain
characteristics that tend to appear in each piece of the authors work. In
the work of Robert Frost he has certain ideas and themes that can be found
in many of his creations of literature. Nature is one theme that seems to
play a major role in the poetry he writes. He tends to use nature to
symbolize something that has to do with human life or situations that
humans face. There is usually a deeper meaning buried in his work.
In the poem “The Road Not Taken” nature comes into play when he
introduces to the reader two separate paths that the speaker comes upon in
the woods. The speaker is faced with the decision of which path he will
choose to travel. He has to choose only one path, therefore leaving one
that he will not get to experience. The disappointment of the speaker is
shown when he expresses that he is “sorry. . .
he could not travel both”
(line 2). He also shows his “hesitancy of the decision” (Barry 13) when
it is stated “Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really
about the same” (line 9-10). It seems as if he is expressing an “inability
to turn his back completely on any possibility” (Barry 13) of returning
when the poems reads “Oh, I kept the first for another day!” (line 13). He
also knew that the possibilities of him actually returning to ever walk the
path not chosen were very slim. He made a decision and “took the other”
(line 6) path. It is obvious that these two roads in the woods symbolize
paths in life and choices that people make in the journey of life itself.
Decisions that people make, large or small, have an impact on their future.
The speaker says that the path he choose “made all the difference” (line
20) in his life. Frost does not name specific decisions that are made and
he does not tell what the results are. He leaves the option open for the
reader to fill in his own circumstances that he has faced life. In lines
16 and 17 the speaker says that in “ages and ages hence” he would “be
telling this with a sigh”.
This shows that the he may be having “regrets
for the possibilities of the past.
. . and is less concerned for the road
taken than for the road not taken” (Barry 12). It seems as if he is trying
to convince himself that the choice he make had a good impact on
.
