Week 1 Reading Reflection
WEEK 1 READING REFLECTION
Shawn Chura
English 125
Victoria Schmidt
May 27, 2013
Week 1 Reading Reflection Every day of our lives, we as individuals are faced with a multitude of choices and decisions. Sometimes these life decisions are easy while other times they are quite difficult. At some point we may even have to make a choice that isn’t necessarily popular and stand by it happily. The persona in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” symbolically recapitulates the event of making a life choice in this frequently quoted poem. Analyzing “The Road Not Taken” using the reader-response approach allowed me to best connect and account for my feelings by finding specific aspects of the literary work that make me feel the way while I read it (Clugston, 2010, p. 16.2). The work initially captured my interest because it took the act of making a decision and made it so much more than a simple yes or no choice. Frost was able to figuratively take a choice and turn it into series of thoughts that evoked beautiful images of a being walking through the wilderness (much like here in Alaska). In my mind I envisioned a man as the persona of the poem, who as he walks on is faced with making a thoughtful choice which is correlated to his passage through the wilderness. The persona’s words and thoughts are portrayed in the first person although I don’t think Frost is the individual making the choice. Frost actually claimed on more than one occasion that this poem was not about himself but actually about his friend Edward Thomas. (Ellis, 2006). Frost sets the tone and the impending choice that the persona of the poem must make in the first stanza. As he describes the metaphorically diverging roads, I can imagine an individual standing on a path that splits into two separate directions faced with making a decision of which way to go. The individual recognizes that they can only go one way (make one choice) and appears to be carefully weighing their options as
Shawn Chura
English 125
Victoria Schmidt
May 27, 2013
Week 1 Reading Reflection Every day of our lives, we as individuals are faced with a multitude of choices and decisions. Sometimes these life decisions are easy while other times they are quite difficult. At some point we may even have to make a choice that isn’t necessarily popular and stand by it happily. The persona in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” symbolically recapitulates the event of making a life choice in this frequently quoted poem. Analyzing “The Road Not Taken” using the reader-response approach allowed me to best connect and account for my feelings by finding specific aspects of the literary work that make me feel the way while I read it (Clugston, 2010, p. 16.2). The work initially captured my interest because it took the act of making a decision and made it so much more than a simple yes or no choice. Frost was able to figuratively take a choice and turn it into series of thoughts that evoked beautiful images of a being walking through the wilderness (much like here in Alaska). In my mind I envisioned a man as the persona of the poem, who as he walks on is faced with making a thoughtful choice which is correlated to his passage through the wilderness. The persona’s words and thoughts are portrayed in the first person although I don’t think Frost is the individual making the choice. Frost actually claimed on more than one occasion that this poem was not about himself but actually about his friend Edward Thomas. (Ellis, 2006). Frost sets the tone and the impending choice that the persona of the poem must make in the first stanza. As he describes the metaphorically diverging roads, I can imagine an individual standing on a path that splits into two separate directions faced with making a decision of which way to go. The individual recognizes that they can only go one way (make one choice) and appears to be carefully weighing their options as
References: Clugston, R.W., (2010). Journey Into Literature. Bridgepoint Education, Inc., Retrieved May 26, 2013 from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUENG125.10.2/sections/ch00 Ellis, R. P. (2006). Robert Frost. Magill’S Survey Of American Literature, Revised Edition, 1-10. Retrieved May 26, 2013 from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/lrc/detail?sid=be222e9f-590a-4ecb-b3a5bb98caf9df87%40sessionmgr104&vid=24&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9bHJjLXBsdXM%3d#db=lkh&AN=103331MSA10989830000097 Richardson, M. (2004). The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics. Retrieved May 26, 2013 from http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/road.htm