Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken Essay, Research Paper

Lisa Asadoorian

11-24-98

Intro To Lit.

Roads of Life

The Road Not Taken is perhaps one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems. This poem deals with the choices you have to make in life. Whether it’s what to wear in the morning or what to do with your life, everyone makes choices. When you look at this poem carefully, you realize Robert Frost is choosing much more than what road to walk down. He is making a lifelong decision.

One of the reasons I am drawn to this poem is the imagery. A forest is a very quiet place that suits this poem well. Being in a forest alone is soothing and a good place to think. Also, many people can relate to being in a wooded area and they can create a mental picture of it. From the beginning, when he said, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” I could picture being in a yellow forest and seeing a fork in the path. The visual images he presents in this poem help the reader to see and feel what he is writing about.

The way the poem is presented on paper is important because it helps to create visual images. This poem has four stanzas with five lines in each stanza. Within each stanza the first, third and fourth lines rhyme. Also the second and fifth lines rhyme. This makes the poem consistent. Consistency is good in a poem like this one because it makes the reader feel more at ease. When you read each stanza you pause after each one because there is a break in what you are reading. After each stanza a different mental picture is created. This helps the reader to better understand the poem. In a poem each stanza is like a paragraph presenting a new idea in each one.

The content of this poem goes much deeper than someone walking in the woods and trying to decide which road to walk down. Robert Frost is not just talking about the roads in the woods. He is talking about the roads of life. Should you go down the road that is “safe” and many others have walked down? Or should you take a chance and walk down the path that not so many people have taken?

We all know Robert Frost takes the road not taken. But the question is how many people would take the unknown road? Why bother to do that when you can walk risk-free down the same road that everyone else is walking down. It’s familiar, and everyone else walked down it, so it can’t be that bad. Many people would probably take the road that everyone else takes. I would probably take it too. Things that you know others have done gives a sense of security to people. I know that before I do something if I am not secure in my decision, then I won’t do it.

Walking down the road not taken can have a lot of consequences. You could never come back and you don’t know what is down that road. Some people like to take chances and not know what is going to happen. This is what Robert Frost is talking about. He is walking and decides to take the road that many others may not take. He does know what the consequences are going to be, but he does it anyway. It takes a strong person to take the road not taken. Not many people would be strong enough to do something in which they did not know what was going to happen. I feel that it takes a special person to walk down the unknown road and succeed in life. That’s what Robert Frost did.

After reading this poem, I came to the realization that when walking down the road of life you might come across a fork in the road. Instead of taking the road that others have taken, challenge yourself and take the one less traveled. The road less traveled may be more challenging but hard work does pay off. It may be scary not knowing what is going to happen, but it’ll work out in the end. After all, Robert Frost took the road not taken “and that has made all the difference.”