The road not taken
(Robert Frost)
1. Theme
Making decision is part of our lives. In other words, we often meet such a situation in which we have to decide which one we should choose. We have the chance to choose only one. We cannot choose both. As we can’t foresee exactly what will happen in the future, we have to choose the one that we think is better than the other. At last we can only come to realize that whether our choice is right or wrong after many years. At that time we can’t return back and start from the beginning again. Our choice, therefore, will make all the differences in our lives.
2. Paraphrase
The poet saw the two roads diverge in a yellow wood. He felt sorry that he could not follow both roads at the same time. As a traveler, he stood at the road fork and looked as far as he would see. He looked where the road curved in the low bushes. Then he decided to choose one road, hoping that it might be more attractive and interesting to him. As the road was grassy and it seemed to him that only few people used it. Although he chose the first road to follow, both of these were nearly the same. The poet walked in the morning on the road where no step could be found and it was covered with decayed leaves so the road was black in colour. However he kept along with the first road he had chosen because he knew about the way of the road. But he did not know the road led him on and he wondered whether he could come back or not. He will be telling about his choice of the roads with a sigh for ages and ages. Two roads diverged in the wood and he took the one, which was used by few people, and it had made him all the differences in his life.
3. Structure
The language used in the poem is simple. There are four stanzas in the poem. There are five lines in each stanza. The language used in the poem suits the subject matter. There is nothing complicated but at the same time it gives the feeling of the poet right away. The words, which have same rhyme in the poem, are ‘wood’ and ‘stood’, ‘both’ and ‘growth’, ‘fair’ and ‘wear’, ‘claim’ and ‘same’, ‘lay’ and ‘day’ and ‘black’ and ‘back’.
