poem analysis

The poem that I chose is  ‘The road not taken’

The poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ is written by Robert Frost is one of the most popular poem. The speaker is telling the story of how he goes to woods and face to different paths diverged to different directions, and how he suggests that he can only choose one path. He chooses the easier or considered as less worn path and says that he will come back to the other one some other day, but then he realises that he will never come back, this decision has made a huge impact on his future. And he wonders what will happen if he chooses the other way. 

The poem is made up of four stanzas, each stanza has five lines and each line contains eight to ten syllables. The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABAAB. It is also written in first person. From my opinion, one of the reasons that this poem is popular or well-known is because it has simple structure and smooth rhyme scheme. The central purpose of this poem is to discuss the significance of a decision that might change a person’s entire future. We could see how crucial the choice made by the speaker is in last line of the last stanza says ‘And that has made all the difference.’ .  In the first stanza, the speaker is walking in the yellow woods, which suggests us that it is fall, then he regrets that he cannot choose both paths, so he starts to decide which path should he go. He consider the fist road as ‘bent in the undergrowth’ which means it is tough and less interesting, then he looks at the second one and describes it as ‘grassy and wanted wear’. Therefore he chooses the first one. But then he realises that both road are equal by saying ‘equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.’ but he saves the second for another day but he knows that he will probably never come back. The whole poem constantly uses symbolism. The two roads symbolises life decisions, the part ‘bent in the undergrowth’ is symbolised as the difficulties or the challenges people will face in life. At the end the poem ends with the same line ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’. 


The poem tries to inform people that each decision should be made carefully and make sure that is what you want the most, or else you will regret and ‘telling this with a sigh’ (line 16 stanza 4). In addition, from my interpretation the theme of illusion is shown from stanza 2 to stanza 3 where one road seems more grassy and attractive and the other one is worn, but it turns out they are the same. I think the purpose of this theme is to inform people that you need to seek for the truth not just by look at it’s cover. 

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