Hufstetler 2
Response to “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
“The Road Not Taken” is a poem written by Robert Frost. Frost was one of the most famous writers in America of the twentieth century. This poem portrays the idea that most people have been faced with a fork in an actual road or path, and not been sure which way to go. Frost tends to leave his poems open ended and allows the reader to choose fate for him or herself. He chooses wording that probably mean only one thing, but could mean something completely different.
In this poem, the narrator is writing to the general audience explaining that we might choose the road that gets us where we want to go, or one that leads us to somewhere new, but regardless, the road we choose takes us to where we are meant to be. There are multiple themes of this poem which includes our choices, ambitions, and our adventurous attitudes.
Frost used figurative language to describe his personal encounters. “And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black” (11-12). In these two lines, the author used imagery to show and explain that the leaves have freshly fallen, which could have possibly made it harder to decipher which was more or less traveled just the day before. Therefore, given this line, it makes it nearly impossible to tell which path or decision is better than the other. However, he also uses metaphors throughout the story to directly compare nature to the decisions we make. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both” (1-2). The two roads splitting within the woods is a metaphor for choice. Wherever the speaker’s life has given or taken him so far, he and everyone else must eventually come to the point and have to make the decision that will lead him down one path, and steers him away from taking the other.
This given poem, like many others, is organized in lines and grouped into stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB, and when it comes to the rhythm of the poem, now that can be a little trickier. The lines are mostly written in an iambic rhythm which means that there is a single unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Overall, Frost uses a very careful rhyme scheme and a tedious rhythm in order for the poem to flow together in a beautiful harmony.
There is a common language pattern that is used in “The Road Not Taken”. The lines “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (1), and “...
