Explication Of The Road Not Taken

In the poem The Road not Taken, Robert Frost addresses the conflict of life choices. A traveler finds himself with a choice in life, which he appears hesitant to make because there is no clear direction. He fears that he will make the wrong decision and realizes that he will never have the opportunity to begin again. This decision will be final and will change the path of his life forever. . At this point I would like to address the choice of gender. I will refer to the traveler as him throughout the explication because that is my impression of the traveler due to the fact that he is in the woods alone and because the poem has a more masculine tone than I would expect from a female speaker. Being that I am also male, I find myself relating to him and his dilemma. The poem is the singular experience of one lone traveler who finds himself alone at a fork in the woods There is no one with him to share the decision or offer advice. The poem is carefully set so that the reader almost feels the brisk breeze in the woods on a fall day when the leaves are turning yellow. The speaker stands silently for a long time as he contemplates how to make a decision. He obviously attempts to study the path ahead and can only see a short distance because of a bend in the path. He notices that perhaps one path has
It is written in iambic meter and is very easy to follow because of its simplistic diction and syntax. Through the use of words like difference, doubted, diverged and sighed the speaker communicates his uncertainty, frustration and general fragility at having to contemplate such a enormous decision on his own. Interestingly, the stanzas of the poem are written with lots of structure, with the first stanza explaining the speaker's problem, the second presenting the choices, the third is riddled with regret, and the fourth focusing on the overall theme of the