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Help with Robert Frost's the Road Not Taken


Lissy 1 / 1  
Nov 3, 2009   #1
Hi,
I'm writing an essay on the theme of choices in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. We're supposed to write 1200-1500 words, and right now, I have 760 words and writer's block. I'm not sure what else to write about. I also need help with my conclusion, my professor complained that it was weak in my last essay, which seems to be a chronic complaint for me. Can you guys help me? My essay so far is below.

The primary theme in Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is that the choices a person makes are important, and that the difficulty the speaker has in making a choice is human nature. The literal meaning of "The Road Not Taken" is clear: the speaker comes to a fork in the road, and decides to take the second road. However, the figurative meaning is more important than the literal meaning, because the poem is more than someone who comes to a fork in a road and has to decide which way to go, it's about the choices people make and how they impact their lives. The main theme is supported by imagery, the metaphor of someone coming to a fork in the path while taking a stroll in the woods, and the other literary devices in the poem.

The theme of choices being complicated in the poem is evidenced by the fact that the speaker clearly thinks that both choices look attractive. The first time that this theme is proved is when the speaker says in the first stanza that he was sorry he could not travel both paths. He also spent a long time analyzing both choices. In addition to analyzing the choices before him and announcing to his readers that he was sorry he could not travel both paths, the speaker vacillated between thinking that both choices were equal, and that the second choice was better.

The speaker thought it was important that he made the right choice then and there. He told the reader that he doubted he would come back. Also, the last line makes the reader think the speaker knew from the beginning that the choice he made when he came to the fork in the path would be important and affect the rest of his life.

The speaker most likely did not finish school, but taught himself what he knows about poetry and literature in general by reading poetry. The speaker used a metaphor as a way of showing how hard the choice was for him, indicating he read often. The narrator used the word and a lot. Furthermore, the speaker utilized simple words for the most part, instead of a large number of words, like a person with a good education might have. The lack of a sophisticated vocabulary in "The Road Not Taken" indicates that the speaker is lacking a solid and well rounded education. This is often seen is young people who are still in school. Lack of a sophisticated education is also sometimes seen in people who started school before Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1936. When the law was first signed, it stated that children under the age of fourteen could not go to work, with few exceptions. Often, before the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law, parents who were poor and needed extra income would pull their children out of school and send them to work, thus generating extra income. However, it often meant children could not read or write well.

The speaker used the metaphor of taking a walk in the woods to drive home how important it was to make the right choice. This is particularly evident in the last three lines, when the speaker reiterates that there were two paths he could take, and that by taking the one less traveled, it made an extremely important difference in his life. However, the theme of choice is also evident in the third paragraph, when the speaker stated he knew how one "way leads to another" and that he in all probability would never come back to this woods.

The theme of choices being important and difficult for people is supported by the imagery. While the narrator does not spend much time spend much time describing the first path individually, he spends a couple lines relating how the second road looked; for example he described how it was grassy and needed wear. In addition to that, the speaker says that both roads had many leaves that had not been walked over until the leaves were black from being walked on, and that both paths had been used about the same amount and that they did not appear to have been used recently.

The literary devices the speaker uses are important. The second trail in the poem is personified; the speaker says it wants wear. The personified road has an impact on the speaker; the speaker seems to have chosen it because "it was grassy and wanted wear". The metaphor is also significant.
Notoman 20 / 419  
Nov 3, 2009   #2
That is quite the word count for such a short poem! The thing about Robert Frost is that he appears simple on the surface, but there is always a deeper message. He doesn't lose himself (or the reader for that matter) in flowery, ostentatious language, but he isn't writing a doctoral dissertation. It is more like a journal entry.

Look at some of Frost's other poem. "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy" is rife with double meaning. Even "King's X," one of Frost's shortest poems at less than forty words, is filled to the brim with symbolism and political statement.

I don't know if you can claim that the speaker is uneducated. Personally, I don't see that in the poem. He may be speaking in ordinary English, but there is still a sophistication to the thought. Frost (although not necessarily the speaker in the poem) was no idiot. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard. He may have never graduated from college, but he did teach high school and college English courses. Heck, even to go to college in those days was unusual.

The literal and simpler interpretation is that once you have taken a road, that road becomes part of your past. You cannot go back and change your past by taking a different route and therefore you must chose wisely. There is also the shout out to individualism ... taking the road less traveled.

But ... here's the ironic part ... the speaker says that the roads are the same. Both are, in fact, trodden. Both paths have been taken before with known results. There is not exactly a lot of risk involved with this decision. He is looking down them and can barely distinguish one from the other. In his future telling of the story, he will embellish the importance of the choice. Is the path a choice or a chance? Is he deciding or merely flipping a coin mentally? Is the simplistic language telling of the lack of thought and care that has gone into the decision? How has the path really affected the speaker's life? Or has it? It that something that is indeterminable? The speaker is already creating his own myth: "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence." His life is ordinary, but even ordinary men have a history and a family that cares about that history.

I don't know if this helps or confuses you even more. What you have now only scratches the surface of analysis and then veers off on a tangent.
arana20540 - / 1  
Nov 15, 2009   #3
IS this considered as an argumentative essay?
Thnx


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