FREE ESSAY ON ROAD NOT TAKEN

ROAD NOT TAKEN

Everyone is a traveler, choosing the roads to follow on the map of their continuous
journey, life. There is never a straight path that one must follow but a sole direction
in which to head. Regardless of the original message that Robert Frost had intended to
convey, in his poem, "The Road Not Taken", has left its readers with many different
interpretations. It is one's past, present and attitude with which he looks upon his
future that determines the shade of the light that he will see the poem in. In any case
however, this poem clearly demonstrates Frost's belief that it is the road that one
chooses that makes him the man who he is.
As following paths one would say that there is a strong sense of regret before the choice
is even made and it lies in the knowledge that in one lifetime, it is impossible to
travel down every path. In an attempt to make a decision, the traveler looks down one
path as far as I could. The road that will be chosen leads to the unknown. As what any
choice you make in life will turn out to be. As much as he may strain his eyes to see as
far as the road stretches, eventually it surpasses his vision and he can never see where
it is going to lead. It is the way that he chooses here that sets him off on his journey
and decides where he is going. "Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the
better claim(725). What made it have the better claim is that "it was grassy and wanted
wear" (725). It was something that was obviously not for everyone because it seemed 
the majority of people took the other path over the more popular, secure one indicates
the type of personality he has, one that does not want to necessarily follow the crowd
but do more of what has never been done, what is new and different.
"And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black"(725). The leaves
had covered the ground and since the time they had fallen no one had yet to pass by on
this road. Perhaps Frost suggests that the path is covered up with leaves because each
time a person comes to the point where they have to make a choice, it is new to them,
somewhere they have never been and they tend to feel as though no one else had ever been
there either. The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual, but
knowing how each way leads them on there way, the speaker of this poem realizes that the
decision is not just a temporary one and he doubts if he should ever come back. This is
his common sense speaking and acknowledging that what he chooses now will affect every
other choice he makes afterward. Once you have performed an act or spoken a word that
crystallizes who you are, there is no turning back, it cannot be undone.
Once again at the end of the poem the regret hangs over the traveler like a heavy cloud
about to burst. He realizes that at the end of his life, "somewhere ages and ages
hence"(725), he will have regrets about having never gone back and traveling down the
roads he did not take. Yet he remains proud of his decision and he recognizes that it was
this path that he chose that made him turn out the way he did while showing the way in
which he lived. To this man, what was most important, what really made the difference, is
that he did whatever he wanted, even if it meant taking the road less traveled. If he
hadn't, he wouldn't be the same man he is now.
There are many equally valid meanings to this poem and Robert Frost may have intended
this. He may have been trying to achieve a universal understanding of people in general.
In other words, there is no judgement, no specificity, and no moral. There is simply a
narrator who makes a decision in his life that had changed the direction of his life from
what it may have otherwise been. It allows all readers from all different experiences to
relate to this poem.