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A Poem by Robert Frost

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Counterintuitive

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What does this mean to you?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 
Although, I enjoy reading plenty of far lesser known poetry, many of Robert Frost's works are amongst my favorite's. I first read this poem in 9th grade English class. The teacher asked us to write in a few sentences a summary. Of course, as expected of a 9th grade class, very few took it serious, and many of the summaries screamed -- "I DON'T CARE." However, a few of us made a sincere effort.

Since then I have read this poem on several separate occasions, for several separate reasons. Depending on the situation and mood which drew me back, I find that my summary often morphs with it.

Literally: This poem is about our free will, the ability to choose where one wants to go in their life (That's the obvious and easy). The hard literal interpretation is it read's that both paths are equal, that there is no road less traveled, and Frost has to take a sigh before telling himself a lie. The lie being that he took the less traveled road. They are both equal, but as he projects a reflection of his past that has yet to come, he realizes he will lie to himself about his choice being unique.

Figuratively: Well, the fork in the road serves as symbolism - obviously. But symbolism of what? That's where my mind changes with the mood and situation. Is life random? Do all of our choices and decisions reflect a fork in the road, one which crescendo's into randomness? Chaos? I don't know...
 
I ignored this thread at first because I've seen this poem beaten to death so many times, but I really really like your interpretation. Honestly feel bad that I didn't look at this poem deeper now.
 
Thanks, and the reason I posted it was because it is one of the most misunderstood poems. Too often does the mindless reader ignore the facts of a poem, and eagerly jumps into metaphors and symbolism forgetting what is plainly written.
 
for me, it has a lot to do with faith in oneself; doing as thou will and accepting the consequences.
hearing him read this aloud gives it a much different feel,, and tone.

bellow is his text of a poem to of been read at JFK's inauguration:
"Dedication"
pretty interesting read, un-read.
NSFW:
 
interesting takes. i feel that the narrator must be satisfied with a lie to protect himself from going insane wondering up what-could-have-happened-if-i-had-taken-the-other-road scenarios. imho, the fork is not a singular moment. rather, the fork represents all points where a path might split into two.

just because a fork in the road is passed doesn't mean there aren't more forks ahead; the only way to conquer worry and regret is to accept the futility and go with the flow. this can be easily related to the "grass is always greener on the other side" maxim; everyone (colloquially speaking) knows the grass looks greener on the other side but may in fact not be so green when standing on the other side. in short, one never knows where the other path leads but one can't help but to think about it and be envious of a potential life that only exists in a dimension of thought. that's where the insanity lies. anyway, that's what i thought.
 
thujone said:
interesting takes. i feel that the narrator must be satisfied with a lie to protect himself from going insane wondering up what-could-have-happened-if-i-had-taken-the-other-road scenarios. imho, the fork is not a singular moment. rather, the fork represents all points where a path might split into two.

just because a fork in the road is passed doesn't mean there aren't more forks ahead; the only way to conquer worry and regret is to accept the futility and go with the flow. this can be easily related to the "grass is always greener on the other side" maxim; everyone (colloquially speaking) knows the grass looks greener on the other side but may in fact not be so green when standing on the other side. in short, one never knows where the other path leads but one can't help but to think about it and be envious of a potential life that only exists in a dimension of thought. that's where the insanity lies. anyway, that's what i thought.
Click to expand...

My opinion is that this isn't related to the saying of "The grass is always greener on the other side". He never says anything about one choice or chance being better or appearing as less traveled or more unique than the other. In fact he says,

"Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black."

The fork in the road represents his life, and the free will we all possess to choose. Through infinite number of these forks (that part of which you said about encountering countless forks in our life I agree with) which we encounter, we exercise free will and through each of these countless choices summed by choice and randomness, the fork really becomes one path -- You can not distinguish between the two.

As I said before, there is no less traveled road, because it is one. And in the last stanza, he puts a twist on it all, a human twist. (See my original literal interpretation).
 
^i like that, but;-)


"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

idk, sounds like he had doubt about his feelings towards a life altering choice . i want to expand more...;-p
hehe-
i still feel he felt hesitation having faith in his intuition, and inner-compass. a sigh of wonderment at how he almost didnt follow his own lead, also a sigh of relief as-well from the results, and established confidence to continue evaluating and fallowing your intuition, guttyWuts, heart.


all the replies so far are true somehow, for myself...
 
^^
I don't think it is a sigh of relief. It is a sigh of doubt or disbelief in his own recant of that moment in the woods, and surely many more. I don't see faith to be a metaphor in this poem.

He has to make a decision unless he is to stand there forever, and the facts laid out before you do not fall to intuition or some evaluation of the two choices. They are equal, so it is falls to chance or choice solely.

~Maybe :)
 
My favorite poem. I use the "I took the road less traveled" advice a lot in my life. It has brought me more creativity and works well with sweet stuff i do for my gf.

great poem
 
The sigh can be interpreted as a sigh of regret or as a sigh of self-satisfaction; in either case, the irony lies in the distance between what the speaker has just told us about the roads' similarity and what his or her later claims will be. Frost might also have intended a personal irony: in a 1925 letter to Cristine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the sigh, Frost replied: "It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life." - source
 
Mmmm Frost. It's good to see that people on this forums are true free intellectuals. Nice pick dude. It's 3:30 am stayed up on an ambien and the visuals from the poetry soothed my bored pain. Great pick.
 
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