The Road Not Taken

By Robert frost

Context

• Robert Frost (1874-1963) was one of the major American poets of the 20th century.
• His poetry is based mainly on the life and scenery of rural New England, but the setting of this poem could reflect almost any landscape.
• This poem is an extended metaphor. There may have been a real road which forked in an autumn wood but it is also an image of the journey through life and the decisions we make often on little or no real knowledge, and which can affect us forever.
• Structure and form
• The poem has four verses, each of five lines of roughly equal length. The rhyme scheme is regular: the first, third and fourth lines rhyme, and the second and fifth.

Language/comments

• A real road in a wood may have prompted the poem, but its appeal lies in the extended metaphor offered by the fork - which way to go? Which is best? Which decision to make? What to choose? Life is full of such dilemmas, and how we choose will affect our future.
• The poem opens with a simple statement: 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood '.
• He (the persona of the poem) is suddenly faced with a choice, and does the 'yellow‘ refer to an autumn wood or to his 'autumn' - was the decision one made in his middle age? He finds the decision difficult; he is 'sorry' not to be able to experience both routes ahead but recognises the impossibility of this for 'one traveller'. Instead his decision takes time 'Long I stood' but he can only see so far before the way ahead is obscured by 'undergrowth'. We none of us can see our future, the experiences which lie ahead of us.

Language/comments

• He looks for something to help him decide, as we all do when faced with a decision, the consequences of which are unknown. He takes the 'other road', which is equally 'fair', and perhaps it seems more exciting as at first he says it 'wanted wear’. Does this indicate he made a choice most people might have found more challenging?
• 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'. His first impression seems to imply that he does not want to make a common choice, he sees himself as not a follower, as more individual than that.
• He begins the third verse by stressing both are unworn - the leaves that lie upon the roads are not ‘trodden black', so are both choices unusual?
• The exclamation which opens the third line indicates what we all know - it is impossible to go back in life; both we and circumstances change; a choice has its own consequences once we make it. He recognises this - 'way leads on to way' - and it is difficult both literally and metaphorically to retrace one's steps exactly.

Language/comments

• He anticipates telling the story of his choice 'with a sigh' which seems to imply regret at this decision but it might be a sigh of relief - it is deliberately ambiguous.

• He repeats the opening line of the poems omitting only the adjective '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 stressing that he alone is responsible both for the decision and its consequences.
• He has now decided that he did make the less usual choice - his chosen road was 'less travelled by', and it has also 'made all the difference '. It is impossible to tell if this difference was for good or ill - again Frost is deliberately ambiguous.
• We know it affected his life/his journey greatly one way or another. The road not taken is a metaphor for all the opportunities missed in life.
• The language the poet uses is simple and everyday. It is the central image, the extended metaphor which is striking: the fork in the road representing a decision to be made. We can all identify with this.

Questions

1. Why was the wood ‘yellow’?

2. Why did he choose the second ‘road’?

3. What was the difference between the two possible routes? Why did he choose the second one?

4. Why does he doubt ‘he should ever come back’?

5. When, and in what circumstances, do you think he will be ‘telling this’? Why will he tell it ‘with a sigh’?

6. Why has this decision ‘made all the difference’?

7. This seems a straightforward poem about choosing a path to continue a country walk. Can you think of any other interpretations?

8. Comment on the effectiveness of Frost’s use of poetic features – rhyme, rhythm, verse structure, imagery. How has Frost used these to engage the reader’s interest?

9. What meaning or message do you take from the poem?