Humans are constantly faced with decisions and these decisions are an integral part of life. However, not all decisions are life changing. Thus, important choices must be carefully considered due to the everlasting impact that they could have on an individual. Many pieces of literature try to convey a message of making the ‘right choice’, which is usually aligned with the norm of society. The poems, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken” by the American poet, Robert Frost illustrate the importance of decision making. “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” illustrates the impact of the wrong choice being made on the personas life to an extent that he/she does not feel like living anymore. This is depicted through his mental state when he wanders into a dark forest that is miles away from his village. On the other hand, “The Road Not Taken” depicts the difficulty in breaking the norm and making a choice that is different from others. The choice that this persona has to make is symbolically portrayed through a fork in the roads while he/she is in the woods. In both poems, the emotional impact that choices have left on the persona and Frost through the use of imagery, is conveying that people who follow the challenging and unconventional path have a higher chance of self-fulfillment.
Making the right choice is a constant dilemma that people are faced with everyday. The importance of making the ‘right choice’ is very important due to the emotional impact that can arise from making the ‘wrong choice’. However, the difficulty lies with determining what the correct choice is. Most people associate the correct choice to be the commonly followed path that everyone else is following as well. In “Stopping...
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...le to take risks due to the unknown but potential benefits that can happen if a person acts differently. Consequently, in both poems Frost, is trying to portray the message that if a person follows their dreams they can live without regrets.
Overall, both poems illustrate the hardships that arise with making decisions. These hardships are illustrated by Robert Frost, through the emotional state of the persona in “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, and the use of imagery in “The Road Not Taken”. However, in both poems Robert Frost is trying to tell the audience to be unique individuals. In result, both poems try to provide an insight on how to make decisions. Therefore, when choices are presented to individuals they should strive to choose what will be the best for them regardless of how hard the choice is or who else has done the same.
Robert Frost is an iconic poet. One of his most well-known poem is titled “The Road Not Taken”. This poem is about the narrator monologue about his travels and choices he faced. It opens up with the view with a fork in the road where two roads take different routes. The narrator must choose which road he will take. The narrator describes his setting vividly of the woods that he is traveling in and the choices he must make, such as “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back.” (14-15). The roads are not only literal choices, but also figurative choices. As they represent all life choices one must make in their lifetime. Frost uses multiple elements within his poem to bring the meaning of it to the reader’s attention. This poem is a metaphor for the choices people must make in their lives and how those choices impact their lives forever.
Decisions are an everyday part of life. Although many decisions made throughout the day may not be crucial to our path of life, most every decision will affect life in some way. Pop tart or bagel, milk or orange juice, as well as drive or take the bus are all choices people make to begin their day, but Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is a perfect example of a life altering decision. Frost wrote this poem when his dear friend, Edward Thomas, was stuck between staying with Frost and becoming a poet, or going to war against Germany in World War I. “Two Roads”, later changed to “The Road Not Taken”, angered Thomas, and caused him to enlist in the war, only to be killed in action two months later at Arras on Easter Day. "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost has a literal meaning from the speaker, or traveler, of the road he did not take, but the deeper meaning certainly shows how decisions alter your life.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost shows the reader how the choices they make will be hard decisions and will follow them. The setting of this poem takes place in the woods, in the fall. The woods will typically be a quiet and serene place making the setting an ideal place for decision making. The setting also helps to show the symbolism that Frost shows by describing the two paths. Frost uses pathos when appealing to the reader’s feelings because any reader has had to make a decision in their life. Creating this symbol helps to relate to the reader. The Imagery that is created helps to make the reader feel as if they are standing in the snowy woods, looking down two paths, and trying to make the decision of which one to take. Frost used
Have you ever been faced with two important decisions? Life is full of options and when when you encounter two decisions you have to choose what path you are going to take. Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” represents two tough decisions and having to choose one and not the other. Robert Frost uses a few poetic devices, such as, metaphor, symbolism and vivid imagery to express and show the decisions we make in life. These poetic devices also help Robert Frost get his point across about the roads.
In this poem, Frost illustrates that every person has his own opinion. He states “Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim” (line 6-7). What make it better was “it was grassy and wanted wear” (line 8). It was something that was obviously not for everyone because it seems that the other people take the more popular one. “And both that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black” (line 11). No one had yet to pass by on this road since the leaves have fallen. “I kept the first for another day” (line 13). The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual, but “knowing how way leads onto way” (line 14). The speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one, and he “doubted if I should ever come back”
Frost realizes that had he taken the other road he would not be where he is today. He was adventurous and choose the road that had been traveled the least recently and that one decision changed his life
Choices in life can be as simple as deciding where to go out to eat or what to wear and as difficult as deciding which college to enroll in and who to marry. The most strenuous part is not knowing if you made the right decision because even the simplest choices can shape the future. There are no guarantees in life so every decision counts. Second guessing is as natural to humans as breathing, which makes the decision making process that much harder because it is more than just picking something and sticking with it, there is always the curiosity of what if? Even when faced with the most difficult decisions one must live with the choices they have made, which is very similar to what the speaker of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is forced to deal with.
In his poem "The Road Not Taken" Frost's theme is about how the choices one makes affect life. When we come to a fork in the road, a decision needs to be made. Both paths are different and choosing the right one – if there is a right one – will depend on where we have been. Each choice that we make plays out differently in our lives. We can look back and wonder what would have happened if we choose differently. But that is outweighed in what we would have missed. Each choice affects who we are, where we are going, and moreover our lives.
Some people go through their lives without reflecting about how their decisions have shaped them as a person. The poems “Fire and Ice” and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost both use the importance of decision making and its effects on the way we live to highlight how our path through life is defined by our choices. At the same time, Frost uses the extreme opposites in “Fire and Ice” and the similarities of the choices in “The Road Not Taken” to explore human nature and permanence of decisions.
In Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, Frost shows the everyday human struggle to make a choice that could change the course of one’s life. In his poem, a person has the choice to take one road or the other. One road is worn out from many people taking it, and the other is barely touched, for fewer have taken that road. Throughout the poem, the speaker learns that just because so many other people have done one thing, or walked one way, does not mean everyone has to. Sometimes you just have to go your own way.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” show the readers similar struggles of life. “The Road Not Taken” is about taking control of one’s life and living it aside from how others live theirs. While “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” shows the desire for rest. Sometimes people regret the possibilities of the road not chosen, sometimes people feel proud about the road that they
The two roads in the poem relate to various paths one might be faced with in life. One path “bent in the undergrowth” (5) which means it had taken many times. However, the other path “was grassy and wanted wear” (8). This is the path in one’s life, which seems “unpopular” at the time. Not many people choose the path that is not typically chosen by others. This is what Frost is doing in his poem as he uses these solid metaphors: challenging his readers to “go against the flow” as the man did.
In his celebrated poem "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost describes the decision one makes when reaching a fork in the road. Some interpret Frost as suggesting regret on the part of the traveler as to not choosing the path he forgoes, for in doing so he has lost something significant. Others believe he is grateful for the selection, as it has made him the man he is. The diverging roads are symbolic of the choices society is faced with every day of life. Choosing one course will lead the traveler in one direction, while the other will likely move away, toward a completely different journey. How does one know which is the right path; is there a right path? The answer lies within each individual upon reflection of personal choices during the course of life's unfolding, as well as the attitude in which one looks to the future.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” both portray weighing of choices in life. The former is about youth and experiencing life and the latter is about old age, or more probably, an old spirit wearied by life. In both poems the speaker is in a critical situation where he has to choose between two paths in life. In “The Road Not taken” the speaker chooses the unconventional approach to the decision making process, thus showing his uniqueness and challenging mentality while in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” the speaker seeks a life without any pain and struggle but at the end, he has to comply with social obligation, which reflects his responsibility towards the society.
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...