The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken is one of Robert Frost's most popular poems, but what does it mean? Is it an optimistic poem about individualism, or a bitter look into the past? This paper will look at different interpretations of Frost's most famous work and try to find out which interpretation makes the most sense.

The first interpretation, and least accepted one, would be the literal translation. The speaker of the poem went for a walk and had to decide which way to go, plain and simple. This interpretation isn't very widely accepted as the "right" interpretation, because most people, even poets, wouldn't take such a minor decision into such detail. The language of the poem implies that this is a much bigger, more life-altering decision that the speaker needs to make.

Another interpretation involves the problems and concerns of the limitations of life and human existence. One person can only take one "road of life" at a time. Man can only pick one path to take in life, and once that decision is made, there is no turning back. All of the What Ifs In the world won't let you turn back time, and there is really no way of knowing if the "right" decision was made. This is brought out in lines two and three: "And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood"

The most excepted interpretation is that the poem is a dramatization of a battle engaged in the speaker's mind. The speaker has to make a decision. Judging by the context of the poem, it was a difficult decision, and very important, and life-changing. Was the speaker contemplating getting married? Having children? Continuing school? Choosing a career? This interpretation however does divide into two separate interpretations. Simply this, does the speaker feel he has made the right, or wrong decision? "I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference." These lines have an ambiguous meaning. Has that difference the speaker refers too made his life better, or worse?

Lines one through five highlight how the speaker is trying to make a decision. "be one traveler, long I stood..." implies that this was a difficult decision for him to make, and took much thought and careful consideration. Another tactic used to accentuate the time put into making this decision is the punctuation used. Compared to the other stanzas in the poem, Frost uses more punctuation for more pauses, and a more drawn out stanza, simulating the length it took to make this decision. It's as if he's looking down this path, wanting, yearning to go down it.

However, though the speaker of the poem is spending an extended period of time to ponder this one road, he rather suddenly, almost carelessly decides to take the other road. After this decision is made, much of the punctuation disappears, and the poem takes up a quicker pace. "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" Frost also uses enjambment to speed up the pace of the poem, to again highlight the rapidity of the decision that was made. All these factors combined signify that the speaker of the poem did not spend the same amount of time studying both of the paths to find out which one was the right one for him, he

In the second stanza, it's almost