The Road Not Taken
There are times when one has to make a choice of what to do in their life. The roads of life are ones that can sometimes be hidden, or disguised from view. Not everyone will take the same roads. Most times one will take the road that seems the easiest, that’s not all ‘brush’ covered, or hidden from view by those metaphorical dark trees that make things look harder. Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken helps to illustrate this point, of decision between these two roads that one must decide to take.
The persona is a traveler, who’s traveling down this road and reaches a fork in the road, where “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/And sorry I could not travel both” (1-2). This traveler, must decide which direction he wants to go, as of course, being only one man, he cannot travel both. If he goes down one road, he has to stay on that road and cannot take the other one he chose not to take earlier. In a way, the traveler wishes that he can travel both of the roads, as you never know where one will take you and he’s interested in them both. But, he knows that this is a time where he has to choose one over the other, as once you go down one road there’s no coming back to take the other. “And be one traveler, long I stood/And looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth;”(3-5). So as the traveler stands there, looking down the roads, one of them, he can’t see that far down, as it’s covered and hidden from view. He can’t see what is down that road, as it seems like it’s a less traveled road. No one has bothered to clear it for easy traveling in quite some time. Whereas when the traveler looks upon the other road it seems like a better one to travel, at first glance, “Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there/ Had word them really about the same.” (8-10). Other travelers had passed over this road previous, making it look more appealing.
It being early for this traveler, having gotten an early start on his day, he’s just standing there, looking down the roads, trying to decide, which way to take his life. “And both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black.” (11-12). This is the persona’s first time to try this. No one has tainted these memories, or this time for him, and he’s trying from a fresh start. No one has stepped where he’s going to go, no matter which road he has taken. Fresh leaves are covering all those footprints of others traveling the roads of his life. As he’s just come to this part of his journey, it makes sense. Footprints can only be left where he has been, not where he hasn’t been yet. And these roads, are both places he’s yet to go. “Oh, I kept the first for another day!/Yet knowing how way leads on to way/I doubted I should ever come back.”(13-15). So this thought of going somewhere new is exciting to the traveler, yet he has realized that this is now the time that he must make the choice. He has to decide which road that he wants to travel down, as life rarely takes you back to places that you’ve never been before, as you’ve already experienced those things and made those choices.
So, with the time and knowing that he must make a choice, he decides and he realizes “I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence;” (16-17). At the time, the decision that he makes seems like the right one, but you never know where the other road would have lead and taken him. At the time, the decision that he made seemed like the correct one but seeing as it’s just the journey through life, he will never know where the road he chose not to travel down would have taken him. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I-/I took the one less traveled by;”(18-19). So, through his deciding and looking between the road that’s better traveled and the road that was less traveled and more covered in shadows and harder to see down, he chose the one that was less traveled, because in a way, that’s how life is. One never knows what’s going to happen, and it’s a mystery. “And that has made all the difference.” (20). And for the persona, this decision to take the less traveled road, had changed his life, and made him who he is, whether he realizes it or not.
It seems like, this is what most people face on a pretty common basis, having to decide which road that they want to take in their lives, and it’s a common issue that we can all relate to. Having the personal be a traveler just helps to enforce the point that everyone is a traveler in their own lives.