Robert Frost went from an unstable farmer aspiring to be a poet to a celebrated American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. In his poem “The Road Not Taken”, he writes about the hard choices that people have to make in their lives. Robert uses extended metaphors and symbolism to show the uncertainty and psychological chaos people feel while making hard choices. Robert was born in San Francisco, California on March 26th, 1874. His parents, William Prescott Frost and Isabelle Moodie were both teachers (“Robert” 1). William and Isabelle met while they were both teaching in Pennsylvania and fell in love. In 1884 William Frost died, leaving his wife and son on their own. The family struggles financially since they were only receiving one check instead of two (Encyclopedia 1). Throughout elementary and middle school, Robert surprisingly didn’t like going to school. He would have rather been playing football or baseball with his friends. His mother made him realize the importance of an education just in time for high school (American 1). In 1892 he graduated high school as a valedictorian along with Elinor White. Robert was accepted into Dartmouth college and only finished one term. Robert and Elinor got accepted into different and when she wouldn’t agree with him to quit college to marry him, he got jealous thinking she was seeing other men. He left Dartmouth college but could not get Elinor to quit her studies to marry him (“Robert” 2). During college Robert worked
Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, can be easily misunderstood, and perhaps for decades it was. Scholar Frank Lentricchia believed that in this poem, the message is that people don’t get a choice in life to pick one path rather than the other, because their lives are already mapped out for us. However, Mark Richardson had a different idea. He thought that it’s not that we don’t get a choice in life, it is that we don’t realize how the choice affects us until later in life. Although these two ideas sound reasonable, what Robert Frost really meant in this piece of writing was not that people choose between two paths, but instead they must forge their own.
How can an author effectively convey a universal message to the broadest audience possible? Simple. The author must simply create a completely impartial narrator, devoid of sex, status, or age. The Road Not Taken is a poem told by an impartial narrator who has come to a crossroads in his/her life. The crossroads is represented by a forked path that leads through a forest. The setting is also impartial; the forest is anytime and anywhere the reader desires it to be. The narrator is forced to make a life-decision, thus changing the course of his/her life forever. Symbolism and imagery are used effectively to reinforce the main theme of the poem.
Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken” centers on the concept of choice. Through the use of the central symbol, the poem expresses both the uncertainty of making a choice and the expectations of the choice made between seemingly equal options. The tone of the poem shifts throughout to show the decision-making process and the regret of choosing wrongly. While the poem gently ironizes the human response to decision making, it is also filled with the anticipation of remorse.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, is about someone choosing between two paths in life that have been laid out for them. One is easier than the other, while the other more compelling and mysterious. In this poem, it uses the setting of someone traveling in the woods, finding two different paths to take. One of the paths has been traveled on more, while the other has not. The poem altogether talks about the effect of what making different choices in life has in the long run.
In life, we are often faced with tough challenges and decisions to make. In the poem, “The Road Not Taken”, by Robert Frost, He demonstrates how the way one handles major difficult decisions, affects the outcome of life. The poem consists of 4 stanzas which each have a slightly different purpose to the poem; however, the first and second stanzas both have the same effect.
‘I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’ The Road Not Taken, composed by poet Robert Frost, is considered one of the best yet one of the most misunderstood poems in the world. His theme of making choices is outlined from beginning to end. The diverging roads symbolises two different choices leading to two very different consequences. However, one irreversible decision can make a huge difference in someone’s life.
One famous poem by Robert Frost is “The Road Not Taken.” In this poem, Frost tells of someone who has stopped at a fork in the road and is trying to choose between two paths. The two paths are both long but he can only choose one. In the end, he chooses the one that not many people go through. The paths in the poem symbolize a choice.
Today is full of decisions to be made. Each decision has more than one path, and the one not chosen can never be taken. It is forever lost to us, no matter how much we may want to change the path we have taken. In the poem, "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost shows us a point in his life where he has to make a decision. He sees two paths of life to go down, and while one is taken by many, and the other is less trodden, as if very few have wandered down it.
Robert Frost is an American poet from San Francisco, California. He is a four time Pulitzer Prize winner and is known for depicting the everyday rural New England environment. He has written poems such as “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “The Road Not Taken,”, and “The Oven Bird.” In the poem “The Road Not Taken” Frost uses Contradiction, metaphor, and Symbolism to depict a fork in the road representing choices and pathways in life.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is an infamous poem written in 1916. In this poem, the persona is faced upon a significant decision. The setting takes place in the fork of a road in the middle of the forest, and the character must decide which path is most beneficial. It is quickly evident that as desirable as it may be, both paths cannot be traveled, and so the decision that is taken must be done with utmost consideration. After weighing in the aspects of each path, Robert Frost emphasizes that although life is full of decisions, each outcome will always be unique, and so one should always trust their inner instinct when deciding. This is often first observed in the title of the poem, which reflects on the path that was neglected. The meaning
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost relays the message that in life we, as the readers of the poem, have many decisions to make and how we choose to make those decisions, rules our future. “The Road Not Taken” is a metaphor for real life and in real life there are important decisions which, in some instances, can cause immense change. The symbolism in “The Road Not Taken” is the two paths which represent the life of a traveler and all his life decisions. In Frost’s poem, the reader comes to realize that life is a combination of decisions, consequences and fate.
Through the course of our life we make decision that with or without our own knowledge will have a significant impact on our life. This is something that all know to be true. The author Robert Frost also knows this to be true. In the poem “The Road Not Taken” Frost addressed the concept of decisions how they are difficult to make, the mentality to have when making a decision, and also how he feel a decision should be made.
In the poem “The Road not Taken,” Robert Frost tells the story of a man looking down two diverging roads. On the surface the story is simply about deciding which road to take, but the deeper meaning is a life lesson about making choices. Frost portrays the theme of making choices in life with the use of imagery, tone, and symbolism. Imagery is very important in “The Road not Taken.” Robert uses imagery in the poem to paint the picture of the woods and the diverging roads.
“The Road Not taken” is a poem that has a very extravagant usage of words. All of them fall together perfectly. This lavish poem by Robert Frost, shows how he had a choice of two roads to travel & could only go down one. When he looks back he debates on his decision & wonders if he’ll ever go back to the two roads & see the one he had not yet explore. The poet explains while staying placid.
Robert Frost is a well-known poet; his writing is famous for its simplicity with a more in-depth meaning than what he has written down. In his poems, there is usually a choice someone must make, and these decisions represent real-life situations that most people are facing. The choices that are made could drastically change one’s life. “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” are two of Frost’s poems that are about making choices. Frost makes it easy to relate to the poems because they apply to everyday life. “The Road Not Taken” talks about the significance of one’s choices, and “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” talks about how a man is readying himself for the inevitable, he is reflecting on his past choices that he has made and how it has affected him. These two poems provide us with an outlook on decisions made in real life situations; “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” teach us to think before we make decisions because it could end up changing one’s life.