Road Not Taken By Robert Frost Essays - Tone, Robert Frost

Road Not Taken By Robert Frost One of Frost's commonest subjects is the choice the poet is faced with two roads, two ideas, two possibilities of action. "The Road Not Taken" deals with the choice between two roads, and with the results of the choice which the poet makes. It raises the evident question of whether it is better to choose a road in which many travel, or to choose the road less traveled and explore it yourself. In "The Road Not Taken," the speakers' tone and setting help illustrate the struggle a person goes through in their lives to pick the right road to travel. It is possible to read this poem as a statement of some self-pity on the poet's part, a feeling, perhaps, that he has been cheated and misunderstood because he took an unpopular path. To support this tone, one might point to the last stanza: The speaker will some day, sighing, tell others that he took the unknown road when faced with a choice. The reading, however, misses much of the significance of the second and third stanzas. At the end of the second, the speaker states that there was really not much difference in the two roads; neither had really been worn by traffic, though one had been given more wear than the other. It becomes obvious that the speaker's tone begins to change. It becomes a little more confident, not much, but definitely less confused and scared than he was earlier. The first glimpse of this change in tone is in the eighth verse where he says, "because is [the second road] was grassy and wanted wear." It also shows that the speaker may not want to be like everybody else, a follower, but instead, chose a different road and be himself, a leader. This verse also says that the road wanted wear, like he was drawn to the path, not just out of his own desire to be different, but maybe out of some pity. That pity being that the road is traveled less not because it is not appealing, but that people are too afraid to be different. Verse 12 is interesting when the speaker says that, "In leaves no step had trodden black," which the reader could interpret meaning that few people who did choose to take the road less traveled did not come across any difficulties or obstacles. He then goes on to say that, "Oh, I kept the first for another day," as to say that it took him a long time to make his decision. Actually, it may have been months or even years before the speaker chose a road. He knew that the decision he made would determine the outcome of his life, and that he would have to be devoted to the road he chose. Once he made this decision, he would probably never be able to turn back. In the third stanza, he says that both roads lay in leaves that no one had trampled down. In other words, both roads were in about the same condition; it is what the man does with his choice that makes the difference. The tone of the last stanza, then, is simply matter-of-fact rather than self-pitying. One cannot know, when he makes a choice, what the results of his decision will be. Rather than being sorry that he took the untravelled road, the poet seems to be saying that he would probably do the same thing again. The speakers tone seemed to have changed with confidence. This confidence, shown in verse eighteen, when the speaker repeats the first verse, except he leaves out the word yellow. Purposely leaving out the word yellow is an example of imagery. In the first stanza, yellow meant the color of the trees and foliage, and in the third stanza, they are no longer yellow. Also in the third stanza he says, "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence." This isn't stated in a negative way, just as a way to portray the fact that he chose the right road. The sigh was to show that the road had not been easy. The setting in "The Road Not Taken," is very important. In the first verse of the first stanza, Frost says, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," which is seemingly a very important part of the poem. This line is a metaphor in which Frost uses woods to represent life. Using this as an image helps to have