8/9/2019 12 - The Road Not Taken

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I couldTo 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 thereHad 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 sighSomewhere ages and ages hence;Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less travelled by,And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

The poem opens with a simple statement: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.He is telling us a story a story based upon his life. He appears to have been facedwith a choice. Does the yellow refer to an autumn wood or to his autumn wasthe choice one made in his middle age? He finds the choice difficult; he is sorrynot to be able to experience both routes ahead but recognises the impossibility of this for a single traveller. Instead his choice takes time Long I stood but he canonly see so far before the road is obscured by undergrowth. We none of us cansee out future, the experiences which lie ahead of us.

He looks for something to help him decide as we all do when faced with a choice,the consequences of which are unknown. He takes the other road, which isequally fair, and perhaps it seems more exciting as at first he says it wantedwear. Does this indicate he made a choice most people might have found morechallenging? The last two lines of the second verse, however, tell us that it did not

prove a less usual choice: both were equally used and worn. As this is the case,we wonder whether he actually had a choice at all.

He begins the third verse by stressing that both are unworn the leaves that lie onthe roads are not trodden black. Again, this indicates that no real choice existed.The exclamation mark which opens the third line indicates what we all know it isimpossible to go back in life; both we and circumstances change. He recognisesthis way loads on to way and it is difficult both literally and metaphorically totrace ones steps exactly.

He anticipates telling his story with a sigh which seems to imply more wisdomthan he actually has. He repeats the opening line of the poem omitting only theadjective yellow which provides a splash of colour in the otherwise plain poem.He ends this line with I and begins the fifth with I, perhaps to create the illusionthat he alone is responsible both for the path he took and its consequences. It isimportant to realise, however, that although the persona tells us that he made achoice, this is not actually the case.

The language the poet uses is simple and everyday. It is the central image, theextended metaphor which is striking: the fork in the road representing a decision to

be made. We can all identify with this. We can also identify with the need to believe that we exercise control over our lives that life does have a traceable pattern due to the choices that we make.

Structure and Form

The poem has four verses each of five lines roughly equal in length. The rhyme-scheme is regular: the first, third and fourth line rhyme and the second and fifth.

Comparative Ideas

Consider other poems in the collection that describe change and the consequences

of that. It might be a decision as in Digging , when Heaney decides not to farm butto write, or a change that occurs naturally such as ageing in Warning .