5/4/2023 0 Comments A road not taken analysisOne of Frost’s best-known poems, opening his third book, Mountain Interval, “The Road Not Taken” was first published in the August 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. When participants were asked which poems they most liked to read, they most often cited “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” With more than 18,000 votes cast, from participants aged five to 97, Frost came out on top. The good thing is that the poem is ambiguous enough to elicit diverse explanations which, being weighed on their merit, provide various perspectives that would still be right, only leaving the writer irked by being misunderstood.After being named poet laureate in 1997, Robert Pinsky took a year-long poll to determine who was America’s favorite poet. More confusing it gets as we try to take such a simple poem so seriously, especially when we try to understand exactly what the writer was saying. Indeed, contrary to what the narrator says that he will say he took the road less taken when actually both paths are less taken, the only actual regret is that he will never know where the other path would have led him. The sigh is misleading as it suggests regret. The same kind of difference the path he took has made but he would never have experienced if he had opted for the former. He sighs at the end because he will never know where that path would have led, he can only guess that going down that way would have made all the difference in his life. A closer look at the title reveals that the whole poem ultimately is about the path he did not take at all, simply because he can take only one path at a time. In interpreting this poem, we tend to forget that the narrator himself had declared both paths suitable, acceptable, and less taken. Indeed, this conclusion is ironic and misleading as it inadvertently suggests, that taking the road less travelled is better than the well-worn path that countless before have taken, and countless after will take. So in a mock jest, he tells himself that in ages to come, he shall look back with a sigh and declare that he took the road less taken, less travelled, and that has made all the difference. Upon which he consoles himself that on another day, he shall take the other path, though in reality, he understands that once he goes down a road, it leads to other roads and eventually, he will never get the opportunity to come back and take the second path as he would have loved to. By implication, choosing one above the other may not translate into a better experience of a walk in the woods.Īt this point, your perplexity as the reader might increase, similar to that of the narrator because it is clear that he must come to a choice and the parallel options don’t make the choice any easier. Frost, however makes it clear in the second and third stanzas that there really isn’t much difference between the two paths. The similarity does not exceed the choice of a path, for in the build up to Ato’s closing song, ancestral cultures seem to be favoured by his family and even though a compromise is reached between his wife and mother, choosing to live in a city that suits his adopted cultures may still be frowned at. His dilemma is borne out of the choice of living in Cape Coast or Elmina, two cities in Ghana that represent ancestral cultures on the one hand and adopted cultures on the other. Shall I go to Cape Coast, Shall I go to Elmina? Both paths however are not ‘wanting wear’ both paths equally ‘lay in leaves no step had trodden black’, both paths are less taken.Īto, in Ama Ata Aidoo’s “Dilemma of a Ghost” is in a similar quandary where he vacillates and his thoughts are rendered in a ghost song: In reading this line, there is a possibility of subconsciously concluding that one road is good to follow and the other ultimately leads to dire consequences. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” Frost’s opening line calls the attention of the reader to one of the most common dilemmas in human history.
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