The Road Not Taken Literary Analysis

“The Road Not Taken” Literary Analysis

In the poem “The Road Not Taken” author Robert Frost uses metaphor to show his readers the choices the character makes in the poem.  This poem is Robert Frost most famous and familiar poem and also the most difficult to decipher because of his heavy use of symbolisms and metaphors throughout the poem. The metaphors are so strong that the reader feels that they are actually there.

        The poem starts off with the speaker walking on an autumn day down a forest path where he comes to a fork in the road. The speaker must choose between the two paths. He regrets that he cannot go down both paths, because that is not possible.  The speaker stops and contemplates for quite a while to decide which paths would be best for him.  This part in the poem is where the metaphors start to kick in. The reader can assume that the fork in the road is actually a point in the speaker’s life where he must make a decision.

In lines four and five the speaker stares down one path to try and see down the path but can only see up to the first bend. The reader now can see that the speaker is trying to see into his future as far as he can. But since predicting the future is impossible the speaker can only see part of the path. The speaker then decides to take the other path. Robert Frost at this point makes it hard to understand exactly what he is trying to say.

Line six reads “Then took the other as just as fair”.  If the reader reads it without the first “as” it’s an easy line in the poem to understand, but since Robert Frost wrote it with both of the words “as” in the line he making a play on words. The words “fair” and “just” both have different meanings. “Fair” means beauty and also equal. The reader could take this, as the road is just as pretty or beautiful as the other path, or the path is just as fair meaning they both have equal outcomes. The reader can assume that Frost intentions in line six were to show the path “as just as fair” meaning the path is an equal outcome as the other.

In lines seven through ten is the part of the poem is where Robert Frost describes the path taken to the path not taken.  The speaker describes the path possibly better than the other one but is not completely convinced. The path that is taken is better because it has not been traveled as much, and because it had more grass and lacked wear. In lines nine and ten the speaker now come to the conclusion that the paths were indeed equal the whole time.

In the third stanza the speaker begins to regret the choice made.  He reassures him self by telling himself that one day he will go back and travel the other path.  The speaker also realizes that the chances of him going back to travel the other path are slim to none. Line fourteen reads, “Way leads on to way”. This can be interpreted to mean that the road he is on will only lead him further and further away from the other path, making him come to the conclusion that he will never go back to travel the other path. At this point in the poem we are seeing Frost’s metaphorical writing becoming strong again. The reader can relate to the third stanza because they can compare it to their personal choices in life. When making choices people always tell themselves if they don’t like the choice made they can always go back, but that is not always the case.