Research Paper On The Road Not Taken

The One-Way Essay

“The Road Not Taken,” a poem by Robert Frost illustrates situations where a person has to decide between two choices that would affect his/her future outcome. The poem describes the seriousness of decisions by expressing the narrator’s complex thoughts and thinking process. By including literary devices such as Imagery, symbolism, and motif, Frost proves the theme of his poem, that making a decision is highly important because once selecting it he/she can’t go back to choose the other. In the poem “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost uses imagery to communicate the idea of not being able to go back after making an important decision by illustrating a one way road. He includes an image describing the road to represent his

By using metaphors, the reader can better understand this idea of predicting what might happen in the future of a certain decision, but still not being able to know what to exactly to expect from life. He compares the action of forecasting, or trying to see what might happen if he selects a distinct choice, with looking down a road but not being able to see what’s beyond it at a certain point: “And looked down as far as I could. / To where it bent in the undergrowth” (Frost 4-5). Foster describes how he tried to look down the road as far as he could to teach the necessary action of thinking thoroughly about the decisions that someone makes, because once they’re decided, he/she will not be able to turn back to choose the other. The main road is compared to life by being divergent to various routes that a person chooses, which are the decisions he/she makes, and the thinking processes that a person goes through before making a decision. The author compares the action of trying to see the possible outcomes of a decision and the action of looking down a road. This is indicated by looking down, or predicting, the road of life to see what is ahead for the roads, or choices available, in order to choose the best one. The narrator well knows that life is unpredictable and has many bends, yet he still tries to look as far as he could because he knows the significance of making the decision and it's impossible change later. As a result of this metaphor, the reader can clearly visualize life, the choices people make, and infer the reason behind taking long before deciding in life. This is that selecting either options can change the course of someone’s life because once it is decided, the person cannot choose the other one. But as mentioned in the poem, people are going to be able to see down a road until it bends and/or gets blocked by the undergrowth or