"The Road Not Taken"
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
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 has made all the difference.
The speaker in this poem is traveling through the woods and suddenly finds a fork in the road (line 1). The speaker wishes to travel both roads (line 2), but knowing that he can’t take both, he must decide between the two paths. Both had leaves on the ground, and grass, but one looked slightly less used (lines 6-8). He told himself that since he cannot be two travelers, he’ll chose one path and come back another time and take the other, even if it will be unlikely to travel that way again. The traveler took the road that seemed less traveled by (line 19). Frost uses an example of hyperbole in lines 16 and 17, where the traveler will tell his story about the diverging roads “ages and ages hence”. Of course, he won’t be telling things in such a long time because he will eventually die before. The paths in the woods are a symbol representing decisions and “paths” that must be taken in life. The speaker couldn’t choose between the two roads, and in life, it might be two hard choices or decisions that we must choose from. This can represent the fact that you don’t have to do something just because everyone else is doing it; it is okay to do something out of the norm. “And it made all the difference…” (Line 20).
For a clear and concise analysis on this poem, please visit http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section7.rhtml.
