THE ROAD NOT TAKEN ANALYSIS

 

The Road not taken was first published in 1916, in the volume of poems entitled Mountain Interval. It has been acknowledged as one of the finest and most popular poems of the volume. In the poem, we find a rare blend of ‘inner lyric vision and the outer contemplative narration’. The poet’s creative faculty gets enlivened when he faces the problem of having to choose one of the two roads at a bifurcation. Here the poet takes his chance and comments on the difficulty and importance of having to make a choice. This poem has for its theme, one of the major themes in Frost’s poetry- the problem of having to make a choice.

Relating the poem to the reality of Frost’s experience, Frost has gone his own way. It was not he that chose his destiny. He was inevitably guided towards his destination by some spirit, some unseen forces that keep working on man. This inevitability, which apparently has an element of choice is brought in this oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood poem, The Road not Taken.

In this poem, Frost tells us that as he was travelling alone one day he found himself to have reached a point where the road divided into two. Robert Frost found it difficult choosing to take one road out of the two. He was indecisive and lingered on for some time. Ultimately he was able to choose one road-the road which he thought was frequented by fewer people than those that took to the other road.

But the poet also realized immediately that there was no real difference because his going through the road would have worn it about the same. Even at this crucial moment of having to make a choice, the poet was aware of the importance of the choice general as well as in particular.

In general, the poet realizes that a person has very often to make choices. One cannot always have the best of everything. It is in making a choice that one has to order one’s priorities and is tested. In particular the poet has an intuition that one day he will look back in retrospect and perhaps be glad that he took the less frequented road. And this is what has made difference to the poet.

The poet’s difference is a characteristic part of him and is in him, ingrained in him even before he launched on his career as a poet. The road that Frost took, (though not wholly of his choice) was not only a ‘different road’-it was a very lonely road, very few people took to it. But as destiny had it, it was the right road for Frost, the road he was, bound to take.

The problem of choice is one of the major themes in Frost’s poetry. It is like a resting point to which Frost keeps returning on and often. Along with this poem, Frost has written many poems in which the question of making a choice is the central point-choices that have to be made compulsorily, choices that have been made, choices that could not be made. Crucial moments when choices have to be made are distinct spots of time in human life. With Frost, these moments become the theme themselves, not just a prop or a backdrop for developing his themes.

Perhaps, if asked, Frost would define man as a choice-making animal. From birth till death, he has to make choices at every step-he chooses, deliberately—and in the best of men, it (this act of making a choice) is often coupled with a thorough knowledge of the consequences implied in making the choice.

In The Road not Taken, the problem of choice is very elementary. There are no obvious reasons for Frost preferring one road to the other. There are no residues of self-respect, moral obligation, not even curiosity in Frost’s preference of the road he finally did take. In interviews, conversation and lectures, Frost always stresses that though the road he had taken had:

“…Perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same…”

Hence, we find that the poet’s choice was logically incomprehensible and appears wholly arbitrary, whimsical and undetermined. But perhaps it was not without an intuitive impulse that it was motivated.