The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is one of the most famous poems of all time. Even though this poem is so famous it is typically misunderstood. “The Road Not Taken” was written by Robert Frost in the spring of 1915 and it’s meaning has been has been debated ever since then. To fully understand the Frost’s meaning of the poem one needs to analyze the poem itself, stanza by stanza then also analyze the context of the poem. The best place to start breaking down Robert Frost’s poem is by reading the poem itself. The first stanza of the poem begins by describing a fork in the road in the middle of a yellow wood. By describing the woods as yellow Frost is implying that it most likely fall. In the next two lines Frost apologizes for not being
Once again Frost says that both paths are equal. We learn in the first two lines of this stanza that Frost is walking through the woods in the morning and that he may be the first person to walk the trail today. “And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.” In the next line Frost appears to make a decision on which path he wants to travel down. He says that he is going to save the first path for another day. Why does Frost say that he is going to return when later we learn that he is never planning on returning to this path? “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”. One can assume that he is only telling himself this so he can fell better about the decision he made. Frost chooses to walk down the second path, the path that he originally claimed was more grassy and wanted wear even though he claimed that both paths were completely
We learn in the book Robert Frost Among his Poems by Jeffrey Cramer that Frost is basing this poem from walks that he and his friend Edward Thomas took. “In 1914, Frost and Thomas often took long walks through the Gloucestershire countryside. Thomas would try to choose a way which might allow him to show botanizing friend a rare plant or a special scene. Often, before the walk ended, Thomas would regret his choice, sighing over what they could have seen if they had chosen a better route”(P.45 Cramer). David Orr is quoted in a PBS interview saying “Frost was very amused by this. And so he wrote the poem as a kind of joke at his friend’s expense.”(pbs). According to poets.org Frost sent this poem as a letter to Edward Thomas in the spring of 1915. Thomas responds to Frost’s letter confused by the letter and calling it staggering. Thomas clearly does not understand Frost’s intention of mocking him. Frost and Thomas send three more letters back and forth before Thomas realizes that the poem is a joke mocking him. “By way of reply, Frost explained that his friend had failed to see that the sigh [in “The Road Not Taken”] was a mocking sigh, hypo-critical for the fun of the thing”(P.180 Kendall). Frost was simply mocking Thomas for sighing and always wishing they had taken a different direction. Frost was very concerned that even his close friend