Road Not Taken Controversy

Robert Frost’s 1916 poem The Road Not Taken is one of the most influential pieces of literature in American history. Since its publication, the poem has been subjected to much misconstrued analysis, which has led to its being stereotyped as a poem about following the speakers instinct. Ultimately we are made to believe that choosing the right, less traveled “road” in life leads to a better future; however, this theory is contradicted in the poem’s own lines.

The popularity of The Road Not Taken is due almost entirely to this false understanding. This iconic poem has been used in advertisements for Mentos, Nicorette, AIG, and even the job-search web site Monster.com. The lines have been borrowed by singers and songwriters including Bruce Hornsby,

Melissa Etheridge, George Strait, and Talib Kweli, and it’s provided episode titles, themes, and inspiration for more than a dozen television shows, including Taxi, The Twilight Zone, and Battlestar Galactica. Even the video game world has been influenced by the poem; A game development company called Spry Fox has a title called Road Not Taken- a puzzle game all about navigating life’s surprises.

Although the entirety of the poem is well known, the last three lines are by far the most recognizable.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
It would be reasonable for anyone to interpret this part of the poem to mean the protagonist took the road less traveled, and benefited positively from it.

This conclusion, however, does not make sense when we look at what the protagonist told us earlier in the poem- neither path is more traveled than the other. Frost seems, instead, to allude to the psychological struggle inherent in decision-making. Eventually, a choice is made, and because the two roads are identical, the narrator picks one, and tells himself that one day he will come back and choose the other, just to see what could have been. While it was made clear that both roads were the same, the narrator fools himself into thinking they were not. Despite the beginning of the poem, it isn’t wholly clear if in the end the narrator sighs out of contentment, or regret. Poetry is, if nothing else, open to

interpretation.
Frost would later say of the poem, “You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem – very tricky” (Letters xiv-xv). He also called the poem his “private jest“. Frost was seemingly well aware that people would have a hard time understanding The Road Not Taken. He writes about his experience reading the poem to a group of college students, and how seriously they took it, despite the fact that he had been “doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling … Mea culpa.” (Karl Smallwood, todayifoundout.com) One confusing aspect of The Road Not Taken is its title.The Poems last three lines are not only the poem’s best­-known lines, but the ones that capture what most readers take to be its central image: a lonely path that we take at great risk, possibly for great reward. This image is painted so vividly that many readers simply assume that the poem is called “The Road Less Traveled.” Search­ engine data indicates that searches for “Frost” and “Road Less Traveled” (or “Travelled”) are extremely common, and even ac­complished critics routinely refer to the poem by its most famous line. (David Orr lithub.com)
In order to understand the poem one has to know why it was written, and this poem was written about one of Frost’s closest friend, Edward Thomas. Robert and Edward met in England at the start of WWI and quickly formed a deep friendship. Thomas praised Frost’s poems when nobody else seemed to notice them, and Frost eventually convinced Thomas to convert some of his own prose into verse."He gave me standing as a poet," Frost said of Thomas, "he more than anyone else."(Matthew Thomas theguardian.com) During the time they spent together, the pair frequently took “talks–walking”- walks through the English countryside to look for wildflowers, spot birds, and chat about their lives in general.
Later Frost noted that during their walks, frequently a choice had to be made over which path to take. Inevitably one would be chosen for one reason or another and after their walks, Thomas would sometimes regret not taking the other path if their walk failed to result in anything interesting-an impulse that Frost equated with the romantic predisposition for “crying over what might have been.” Ultimately this caused Frost to joke that Thomas was, “a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other.” (todayifoundout.com) Frost sent a draft of The Road Not Taken, under the title “Two Roads”, to Thomas in 1915. Frost was under the impression that his friend “would take the poem as a gentle joke and would protest, ‘Stop teasing me.’” Unfortunately, Frost would soon realize the error in his ways.
Despite his relative literary success, Edward Thomas was a man full of self doubt. His exposure to the war created negative thoughts he couldn’t seem to shake. Although He was almost indifferent to the politics of the conflict, His eyes were opened to the worth of the land beneath his feet and the way of life that it supported. What would he do if he was called on to protect it? Would he do anything at all? There is one incident that further cemented Thomas’ sullied image of himself.
In late November 1914, Thomas and Frost were walking in the woods behind Frost's cottage when they were met by the local gamekeeper, who told the men bluntly to clear out. Frost argued back, stating his right as a resident to roam where he choosed. Insults were hurled, threats were made, and just when Frost was ready to fight, he and Thomas were chased off by the gamekeeper with a shotgun. Although both men left unscathed, the event would leave Thomas haunted by the feeling of fear and cowardice he had experienced in that stand-off with the gamekeeper. He felt mocked by events and possibly even by his friend. he vowed that he would never again let himself be beat down. When the moment came he would hold his nerve and face his fears. "That's why he went to war," said Frost later. ( theguardian.com) In the summer of 1915, six months after the fight with the gamekeeper, Thomas enlisted. He was killed on the first day of the battle of Arras, Easter 1917; he had survived little more than two months in France.
Regret is a powerful emotion. Everyone wonders about the road not taken. we stop for a moment and imagine what our lives would be like if we’d taken the other path. Regret sometimes manifests itself as an overwhelming sadness; Edward Thomas struggled with depression for most of his life. How easy it is, to focus only on what we may have missed. Regret is the most important theme in The Road Not Taken. Frost informs readers of the psychological implications of the decisions they make, and warns readers to be aware of their mindset in their own lives.
The poem is titled The Road Not Taken - not the The Road Taken.

The speaker is “telling this with a sigh.” In the poem’s final stanza, he broods over the path he chose not to follow, rather than taking full advantage of the path he did follow. Jay Parini, Frost biographer, suggests: “My guess is that Frost, the wily ironist, is saying something like this: ‘When I am old, like all old men, I shall make a myth of my life. I shall pretend, as we all do, that I took the less traveled road. But I shall be lying.’”(Joseph Bathanti ncartseveryday.org) “I am not a nature poet. There is almost always a person in my poems,” Robert Frost famously said. He saw how prone his dark, ironic, and complex poems were to misinterpretation. Frost didn't take the high road or blaze his own trail, he chose between two very similar courses of action and his decision itself is what “made all the difference.” We all face seemingly unimportant decisions every day which alter the course of our lives from that point onward. Sometimes, we can save the alternate path for another day, but eventually, as Frost points out, time goes on and we leave those choices behind us

forever.