Fork of a Road

A detailed Summary of Fork of a Road


"When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra.

Everyday we are met with circumstances and with the circumstances come the decisions we make in order to fulfill our lives and make them meaningful. However, once we make a decision, after we pass that "fork in the road", we need to move on, accepting what we have done, because what has happened has happened and there is nothing we can do to change the past. Such is a case in Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken", and Alistair MacLeod's short story "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood". While the persona in Frost's poem has knowingly come to a dilemma, in contrast, the narrator in MacLeod's story makes a decision without glancing to the future. Everyone is a traveler, choosing the roads to follow on the map of their continuous journey, life.

Robert Frost puts his persona in front of a road diverging, and he must make a decision on which to take. The two roads are almost identical, but one is less traveled by. He looks ahead, but can't see far, due to "where it bent in the undergrowth". Alistair MacLeod does it differently; the narrator has come to a fork in the


The final comparison is that the persona thinks ahead, and takes the road less traveled by. He is not sure if it is the right choice; it has made all the difference. He also doubts if he will ever return. The narrator doesn't think and takes the road more traveled by, which turns out to be the wrong choice. He does come back, only this time he takes the other road, the right choice. In conclusion, the road that will be chosen leads to the unknown, as does any choice in life.

The simple difference is that the narrator in "The Road Not Taken" looks ahead and chooses to take the road less traveled by, while the persona in "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood" doesn't look ahead and takes the road more traveled by. By taking the road less traveled by, he chooses the road "that has made all the difference", not necessarily the right choice , but a choice he made knowingly. Before he leaves he thinks "Oh, I kept the first for another day!", he realizes the choices and thinks of coming back and taking the other road. "I doubted if I should ever come back" this is his turning point, he realizes that he probably will never come back, but he thinks of thi

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Approximate Word count = 778
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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