In the comments section of this post, I have put up the rest of the analysis of the meaning of "The Road Not Taken." Copy this down into your notes.
You must also read 'Excelsior' on page 116 of your textbook.
I will be posting your Oedipus the King comprehension questions to help guide your reading. You do not have to work on these until Thursday.
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3. THE MEANING OF THIS POEM:
This poem is about the nature of decision making and about the choices that people have to make in their life. The poem points out that often, when you make a choice, your life is affected by that choice, and you cannot change your choice after you have made it.
The poem also comments on what people like to do after they make their choice—because we want to believe that we are taking “the right path”, we often romanticize the choices we make—we make these every day decisions carry more weight than they actually do, and we tell people about how, in making our decision, we did something unique and how that choice made all the difference in our life. We want to believe that our choices are the best, when in reality, sometimes there is no best choice. The poet leaves the final line “And that has made all the difference” ambiguous—on the one hand, the reader can choose to think that this poem is depressing since it is about how people lie/over-romanticize their choices, and that their choices don’t matter—but on the other hand, “and that has made all the difference” can be positive, since it is talking about the joy that people have when they make their choices seem special and when they get to recount their stories to others.
This ambiguity is important because it presents the reader with a choice—are they going to interpret the poem in a positive way or a negative way? Therefore, in the end, the reader is presented with their own “two roads” that diverge.
Sorry, I realized I only posted part of the answers. I AM SO SORRY!
Summary:
The speaker of the poem was traveling one day on a road, and the road came to place where it branched off into two paths, each going in a separate direction. The speaker regrets that he cannot travel on both at the same time, so he stands at the fork in the road and looks down one path to see what lies ahead. (Stanza 1)
The speaker takes the opposite path, which is equally beautiful as the path he was looking at—the path might be better, because not many people had traveled on it, but really, the speaker is aware that the paths are really about equal, and that the only difference they have between them is that they lead in different directions. (Stanza 2)
The speaker tells himself that he will take the path he didn’t take someday in the future, but he also is doubtful that he will actually do it, because often, when you choose one path, it is impossible to return to the place you had been before—paths have a way of branching off into other paths. (Stanza 3)
As the speaker is walking on this path, he thinks about how someday, he will tell others of this day, of the day where he had to choose between two paths. He will tell them of the two roads that diverged in a wood, and how he took the one that was less traveled by (though, in reality, as the speaker said earlier, the roads are equal and THERE IS NO ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY), and the speaker says that this has made all the difference—which can either mean that the speaker will tell his listeners that the choice he made had a great effect on his life, or he could be commenting on the fact that the lie he will tell in the future will make all the difference when he remembers this day. (STANZA 4)
1. What clues lead us to believe the road is a symbol?
Frost spends a lot of time giving details about the road- how it diverges, the things that grow on and over the roads, and also, the fact that the speaker spends so much time choosing between the two roads shows that the road is significant. Finally, when the speaker says “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” it shows the reader that the road is important—but if it is just a road and not a symbol, then the final line of the poem does not make much sense.
2. What are some possible symbolic interpretations of the road? The most likely symbolic meaning of the road in this poem concerns choices and decisions that we make in life, where the roads represent the paths that we take in life.
3. THE MEANING OF THIS POEM:
This poem is about the nature of decision making and about the choices that people have to make in their life. The poem points out that often, when you make a choice, your life is affected by that choice, and you cannot change your choice after you have made it.
The poem also comments on what people like to do after they make their choice—because we want to believe that we are taking “the right path”, we often romanticize the choices we make—we make these every day decisions carry more weight than they actually do, and we tell people about how, in making our decision, we did something unique and how that choice made all the difference in our life. We want to believe that our choices are the best, when in reality, sometimes there is no best choice. The poet leaves the final line “And that has made all the difference” ambiguous—on the one hand, the reader can choose to think that this poem is depressing since it is about how people lie/over-romanticize their choices, and that their choices don’t matter—but on the other hand, “and that has made all the difference” can be positive, since it is talking about the joy that people have when they make their choices seem special and when they get to recount their stories to others.
This ambiguity is important because it presents the reader with a choice—are they going to interpret the poem in a positive way or a negative way? Therefore, in the end, the reader is presented with their own “two roads” that diverge.
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