Commentary on The Road not Taken

A detailed Summary of Commentary on The Road not Taken

The poem is basically about a person who has at some point in his life been posed with a question of which path to take. Obviously, there would be a dilemma on his part and the poem revolves around his decision. Frost's narrative style has lent itself to a certain amount of ambiguity in what he is trying to convey.

This ambiguity that Frost has left the reader to contemplate is basically divided into two schools of thought. The first is that Frost has a regret for the choice that he has made and he is relating the hardships of that choice to the reader. The alternative is that he is simply trying to make a statement about life and harbors no regret towards the choice that he has made.

The first theme to be considered is that of Frost's analogy of one's life being put onto some sort of timeline and he has used roads to illustrate the idea of many possibilities. The use of nature in the same line "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" gives an almost organic-like appeal. This helps us to integrate roads into the natural environment and it gives an impression that the decisions that we have to make are natural. The divergence of the two roads into the same place (a yellow wood) symbolises Frost's departure into the real w

An alternative view, though offered to us by the line "Somewhere ages and ages hence:" hints that maybe he is accounting this a long time after he had made the decision.Also because of the boastful nature of the last stanza where he says proudly that he took the path others wouldn't he might be telling it to an audience such as his grandchildren. Now looking back at the first stanza with this view in mind it strikes us that the setting and the type of language used could be something of a children's story.

Frost has used a clever illustration of the continuance of these roads to depict the uncertainty that life holds. The dilemma that he is going through is shown again by the usage of the roads and how at the beginning everything looked almost the same but upon minute inspection it showed that one was slightly better. This is conveyed to us by how much the path had been stepped on. However, this brings up another controversial aspect of the poem, does the path less trodden on really mean a better future? As previously mentioned, the future is uncertain so what looks promising today may not be tomorrow. At the end of the third stanza there is a very definite appeal to it because there is no way of going back, just like time.

orld (because of the singularity in "wood"). This could mean that the wood is being compared to

Some common words found in the essay are:
, people sigh, colour wood, yellow wood,

Approximate Word count = 900
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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Commentary on The Road not Taken

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