The Road Not Taken
By: Robert Frost
Le'Andrea White
Literal
In The First Stanza It Talks About How The Speaker Is At Somewhat Crossroad. Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood. The Speaker Apologies And Wishes He Could Travel Both At The Same Time But He Cant. The Speaker Tells Us He Stood For A Long Time Deciding On Which Route To Go. He Stares At Both Pathways, Looking Beyond The Trees.
In The Second Stanza The Speaker Chooses A Path. Just Like The Other One The Speaker Thinks Or Just The Better Choice As Of Right Now. The Path Is Grassy And Not Worn Out. It Still Looks Fresh. But From Passing The Other Path, Both Are just About The Same.
Third Stanza The Speaker Says The Next Morning Both Paths Look The Same, Looks Like Hardly Anyone Ever Walks On It. The Speaker Saved The Other Path For Another Day. But He's Having Second Thoughts About Coming Back Because One Path Can Lead To Many Other Different Types Of Paths.
In The Last Stanza The Speaker Says That This Can Go On And On For years. He Took The Path That No One Walks On Or Went.
Situation
The Poem Tells A Story About A Man Deciding On What Path To Take. He Choses The Path No One Else Took And He Became More Successful.
The Poem Mood Is Dare Taking, Challenging, Independent, And Responsible. The Speaker Does Follow Everyone Else Instead He Does What He Thinks Is Right.
The Speaker Is Told Through A Fictional Persona. The Speaker Is Speaking To "We" The Audience.
The Poem Is Motivating, Makes You Want To Become A Leader. Following Everyone Foot Step Instead Of Your Own Is not Going To Get You Far. Every Path Is Not For You To Take
Structure
There Are 20 Lines In The Poem, All Are The same Length. Its Traditional Form. The Rhyme Scheme Is ABAAB.
In The Beginning Of The Poem The Speaker Is At A Crossroad. He Doesn't Know Which Way To Go. He Takes The Path No One Goes For. At First He Thinks Both Paths Are The Same, But In The End He's More Successful By Taking The One He Picked.
There Are Four Sentences In The Poem, The Sentences Are Complicated.
There Is One Exclamatory Point And Three Statements. Most Of Them Are Enjambment, Maybe Because The Speaker Didn't Know What Decision He Wanted To Make.
The Title Road Not Taken Means He Didn't Go Down A Certain Path. It Relates To The Poem Because The Speaker Went Down His Own Path, Instead Of Taking The Other Path That Everyone Else Was Taking.
Language
The Language Is Colloquial.
Lines 4-5: This description of the road is a metaphor for the future. Just like we can only see a path in the woods for so far, we can only see the consequences of our decisions for a short while into our future.
Lines 11-12: Here, we see the autumn imagery continue, and we find out that it's morning. We also see a contradiction of the earlier claim that one path is less worn than the other.
Musical Devices
The Rhyme Scheme Is In A Regular Pattern.
The rhythm of the poem is a bit trickier. It is basically iambic, which means that there is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da DUM). There are many variations in this poem, most of which are anapestic, which means that there are two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable (da da DUM).