Robert Frost and Individualism
Personal freedom is something that we all value and cherish. Our forefathers founded this country on the premise of freedom of choice. However, since its inception, there has been a struggle within our country to find and maintain a critical balance so that individuals are free to exercise personal choice so as not to infringe upon the rights of others. Robert Frost speaks to individualism in both of his poems, “Mending Wall” and “The Road Not Taken.” These poems illustrate not only the need for boundaries in our society, but conversely the necessity of balancing the individual’s choice against the fundamental rights of the group.
Frost began publishing his poetry during a time of transition both in America
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We see people who feel there is no need for boundaries. They feel like their rights should reign supreme without consideration for the rights of others; on the other hand, the government feels the need to maintain traditional boundaries by means of our judicial system. “The debate over the meaning of the wall expresses the American debate between two principles, the freedom of the individual imagination to express itself without limitation and the pragmatic need to check a potentially dangerous extension of the rights of some over others” (Tuten 203, 204). If the rights of the individual become paramount, this will become detrimental to our society as some distinct boundaries are necessary to maintain a well-ordered, productive society. “Even though humans long to connect with one another, a connection that is too close or boundaries that are indistinct can be dangerous” (Ruby, par. 1). Just as the two men in the poem both work together and apart, it is imperative that we all work together for the common good, while still allowing for self-expression and differing …show more content…
The poem begins with its primary metaphor, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood” (1452). Here the tone of the poem suggests that the speaker faces a difficult choice. He wishes to pursue two conflicting paths while realizing he must choose because traveling both is unrealistic. After evaluating both courses, the poem ends with his reflection that “I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference” (1453). Many see those lines as signifying that an independent, unconventional life is more advantageous than living one’s life within the constraints of
Both authors explore the progressive attitudes and how these were received during the time period of both Fitzgerald and Robert. Frost presents this idea in the poem, ‘Mending Wall’. The poem is about two neighbours who every year go to the end of the garden to meet and build a wall together. However, one neighbour is confused as why there needs to be a wall as there is nothing that needs to be divided or prevented from escaping or entering. This neighbour begins to challenge the other neighbour, ‘why do they make good neighbours?’
The speaker says he is “sorry I could not travel both”, meaning that he feels sorrowful about not being able to take both roads. This stanza has a much deeper meaning, more than just not being able to take a path. Although the speaker travels into a yellow wood, the paths represent a very important decision the traveler must make. This is an example of a metaphor where the traveler compares the decision to two paths in a wood. He observes the first choice, said as looking down as far as he could in line four, and tries to see where it will take him in the future. He only stops imaging the consequences of this choice when “it bent in the undergrowth;”(5), or when the future of the choice was no longer
Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, is a descriptive poem about a person’s conflict with the right path to take throughout life. The choice that this person makes can affect him forever. There are lots of choices like this throughout a person’s life that are made that piece together the future. What they do with these choices and the decisions they make are up to them. Although the narrator of this poem is faced with a dilemma, he still makes the best decision possible and takes the best road, which happens to be one that no one else has chosen to take.
In Robert Frost’s poems “Love and a Question,” “Mending Wall,” and “Home Burial,” there is a significant barrier present between man and man or woman. Conflict between people is a major theme for these poems, and it alters the outcome of them. There is a great deal of tension present between the characters, causing unstable relationships, as well as a desire for no relationship at all. These three poems are based around knowing that conflict is inevitable, and it evidently causes a desire for little to no human interaction.
In his poem 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost presents to us the thoughts of barriers linking people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers. His messages are conveyed using poetic techniques such as imagery, structure and humor, revealing a complex side of the poem as well as achieving an overall light-hearted effect. Robert Frost has cleverly intertwined both a literal and metaphoric meaning into the poem, using the mending of a tangible wall as a symbolic representation of the barriers that separate the neighbors in their friendship.
In his poem 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost presents to us the ideas of barriers between people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers. His messages are conveyed using poetic techniques such as imagery, structure and humour, revealing a complex side of the poem as well as achieving an overall light-hearted effect. Robert Frost has cleverly intertwined both a literal and metaphoric meaning into the poem, using the mending of a tangible wall as a symbolic representation of the barriers that separate the neighbours in their friendship.
Lentricchia, Frank. Robert Frost: Modern Poetics and the Landscape of Self. Durham: Duke University Press. 1975. 103-107.
In Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” there are many complexities that ultimately lead to the poem’s unity. At first glance this poem seems to be a very typical coming of age poem where the speaker has come to a major fork in the road and he must decide which path to take. At first glance this would be a very good statement to make; however, as the reader digs deeper and searches for the complexity and the nuances of the poem the original assessment seems to be shallow and underdeveloped. In order to truly appreciate this poem as a work of art, the reader must search for the unity and complexity within it, otherwise this poetic work of art will go by unnoticed and cast off as a coming of age poem and nothing else.
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.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7Th Ed. Nina
Above all, 'The Road Not Taken'; can truly be interpreted through much symbolism as a clear-sighted representation of two fair choices. The two roads in the poem, although, 'diverging,'; lead in different directions. At the beginning they appear to be somewhat similar, but is apparent that miles away they will grow farther and farther away from each other. Similar to many choices faced in life. It is impossible to foresee the consequences of most major decisions we make and it is often necessary to make these decisions based on a little more than examining which choice 'wanted wear.'; In
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost is a poem in which the characteristics of vocabulary, rhythm and other aspects of poetic technique combine in a fashion that articulates, in detail, the experience and the opposing convictions that the poem describes and discusses. The ordinariness of the rural activity is presented in specific description, and as so often is found in Frost’s poems, the unprepossessing undertaking has much larger implications. Yet his consideration of these does not disturb the qualities of accessible language and technique, which give the poem its unique flavor and persuasiveness. The poem works on two levels of realism and metaphor, with a balance as poised as the act of mending the all itself.
The overarching theme throughout the entire poem is that of choices. The concept of “two roads diverged,” or a split in the road, is a metaphor representing a choice which the narrator must make. Being “sorry [he] could not travel both… [being] one traveler” illustrates that, although he wishes he could see the results of both choices, as seen in saying he “looked as far as [he] could to where it bent,” he is but one pers...
In the poem “The Road Not Taken”, author Robert Frost uses the simple image of a road to represent a person’s journey through life. A well-established poet, Frost does a proficient job of transforming a seemingly common road to one of great importance, which along the way helps one identify who they really are. This poem is one of self-discovery. Frost incorporates strong elements of poetry such as theme, symbolism, rhyme scheme, diction, imagery, and tone to help create one of his most well known pieces about the human experience.
There are many choices that one needs to make on a daily basis to simply get through the day. Life choices however are more important and have an everlasting effect on the individual. They are less frequent but have more of an impact on one’s life. The writer Robert Frost chose to use the poem “The Road not Taken” to show how one’s decisions can change the outcome of your life. Frost used the details of picking the road, the inability to reverse his choice, the consequences of his judgment, along with the external factors that influenced his judgments to express to the readers how life’s decisions make a difference all by writing a poem.