Road Not Taken Explication

“The Road Not Taken” written by Robert Frost, consists entirely of four stanzas of five short lines. Despite this however Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, is one of the most often misinterpreted and misunderstood poems, regardless of its own renown, in the world. Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is often remembered for its resonanting metaphor, memorized for a meaning it does not really have, all without ever really being read. Frost’s poem is in truth a melancholy of free will and fate, represented though the archetypal dilemma of a fork in the road and two equally leafy paths where we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what it is we are choosing between. Our route is, thusly determined by an accumulation of choice and chance, and the impossibility to separate the two.
This common misunderstanding of “The Road Not Taken” can be easily extinguished through simply reading the poem in detail, not with artistry or inventiveness but with acute precision and accuracy. In “The Road Not Taken” Frost writes that of the two roads “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” And that in fact, both roads “that morning lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.” This would mean that neither road could claim to be less traveled by as both roads were in seemingly the same
Be it paths in the woods, forks in a road, diverging paths, or large crossroads they are primordial and deeply-integrated metaphors for life, with its crises and decisions. Indistinguishable forks, in particular, symbolize a nexus of free will and fate: Where we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what it is we are choosing between. Our route is, thusly determined by an accumulation of choice and chance, and it is impossible to separate the