Robert Frost Poems Analysis

Sometimes a life can be changed by the simplest of decisions. Robert Frost has written three poems all revolving around choices. These poems are “The Road Not Taken,” “Mending Wall,” and “After Apple-Picking.” In each poem, the speaker questions a particular aspect of his life. However, each decision, no matter how big or small, creates a puzzling problem in the speaker’s life. This essay will argue that Robert Frost’s poems, “The Road Not Taken,” “Mending Wall,” and “After Apple-Picking” symbolically suggest that the poems’ speaker is confronted by difficult decisions, perplexing obstacles, and unfinished business in his life. In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker is confronted by difficult decisions. First, his trails begin when he reaches “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and says “sorry I could not travel both” (Frost 1-2). These two roads represent the choices the speaker is faced with. He wishes he had not come to this fork in the road because it forces him to choose a certain way. After, he gives this decision a lot of though and says, “[I] looked down one as far as I could...[and] shall be telling this with a sigh” (4, 16). He is trying to see how far each path will take him, but it is impossible for him to know for sure. It is extremely difficult for him to make a decision because him will forever wonder about what could have been. The speaker will end up sighing about his choice either way. However, some decisions can be even more difficult and perplexing. The speaker in the poem, “Mending Wall,” finds himself contemplating the perplexing obstacles that deal with the wall between his and his neighbor’s properties¹. Every spring when the wall needs repair, “[He] [lets] [his] neighbor know beyond the hill/ And on a day [they] meet to walk the line...[they] wear [their] fingers rough with handling them...[and yet] it comes to little more” (10-11, 20, 23). When seeing that work is needed, he goes to his neighbor seeking