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Robert Frost: A Different Outlook This has got to be among the best-known, most-often-misunderstood poems on the planet. It seems as if The Road Not Taken gets memorized without really being read. This is a type of poem that needs to be read with accuracy, not imagination. If you read the poem and really try to understand the meaning of each word, its plain to see what the poem is talking about. It seems to me that most people believe the poem is about how a man took a path in life that not many people take, and has had a great life because of it. When you break it down and read the lines separately, its easy to understand what the poem is really about how you will always wonder what could have been.
In line 9, of the two roads the poem reads the passing there / Had worn them really about the same. In fact, both roads that morning lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. Meaning: Neither of the roads is less traveled by. I do not believe the poem is about how the man chose the right path; instead I believe it is about how he will always wonder what would have happened had he taken a different route.
Ironic as it is, this is also a poem infused with the expectation of regret. Its title is not The Road Less Traveled but The Road Not Taken. Even as the character makes a choice (a choice he is forced to make if does not want to stand forever in the woods, and for this choice he has no real guide or basis for decision-making), the reader knows that he will second-guess himself somewhere down the line or at the very least he will wonder at what is forever lost: the impossible, unknowable Other Path. The character will never know what could have been, he will always wonder about decisions that he could have changed and other things he could have accomplished. But the nature of the decision is such that there is no right path just the chosen path and the other path. What are sighed for ages and ages hence are not so much the wrong decisions as the moments of decision themselves moments that, one atop the other, mark the passing of a life.
One of the attractions of the poem is its classic dilemma, one that we instantly recognize because each of us encounters it innumerable times, both literally and figuratively. Paths in the woods and forks in roads are easily recognized as metaphors for a persons life, more particular a persons decisions, crises and dilemmas. In one way it also symbolizes that we are free to choose, but we do not really know beforehand what we are choosing between. Our route is, therefore, determined by a buildup of choice and chance, and it is impossible to separate the two. This poem does not advise. It does not say, When you come to a fork in the road, study the footprints and take the road less traveled by.
Frosts focus is more complicated. First, there is no less-traveled road in this poem; it isnt even an option. Next, the poem seems more concerned with the question of how the present (yellow woods, grassy roads covered in fallen leaves) will look from a future viewing-point. The tone is obvious: I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence. The speaker anticipates his own future his need, later on in life, to recall his decisions and reflect on them, for the purpose of deciding whether or not his life was well lived and worthwhile.
He knows that he will be inaccurate, at best, or hypocritical, at worst, when he holds his life up as an example. This whole poem deals with when the character will look back at the decisions he had to make, and he will see them all the same: And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black. Back then when actually faced with the decision, all options looked the same. He may have thought each one through differently, but he will never know what could have happened, simply what has happened already.
In the last lines of the poem, the sigh is critical. The speaker will not, in his old age, simply talk to his grandchildren and say, Do what I did, kiddies. I stuck to my guns, took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Rather, he may say this, but he will sigh first; for he wont believe it himself.
Somewhere in the back of his mind will always be the image of yellow woods and two equally leafy paths. He will always think about what he could have done and wonder what really could make all the difference.
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