Robert frost- the road not taken Essay Example for Free

Robert frost- the road not taken Essay Life is full of obstacles that have been throw our way to see who is the strongest to survive, some make it to the end and some suffer more in the process. When people open up to different opportunities, it is the initial response by human nature to pick the opportunity that will give you the most benefit. The concept of having to pick between two paths has been identified in the poem â€Å"The Road Not Taken† by Robert Frost. There have been times when a person had to choose a specific path that they though they should take but the truth of the matter was it ended up being the wrong choice. In life it is normal for people to make mistakes because we were not created and put in this world to be perfect. Nothing in life can be prefect because there is sadness along side happiness. When reading this poem it is as if I am in this poem and I was watching from the sidelines but I can read into the poets mind. Poems like this are rare; the way they are told with such vivid imagery sets the scenery up in the readers mind. The diction Frost uses to describe the fall season so adequately and imbeds it in the poem to run it more smoothly. In the first stanza, Frost says â€Å"And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth†, with such poetic significance that he is looking as far as he can into the two roads on one autumn day. He implies that he is sorry in the second line because he has a form of regret that he cannot travel both of the roads laid ahead of him at once. Not only are these the paths to another day but also they are the paths to his future. That is when Frost freezes and has to decide which one would most benefit him. Now he is forced by his own willpower to stumble upon the second road to which he continues to talk about. By using play on words such as â€Å"just† and â€Å"fair† he confuses the reader. Frost has a powerful way of making a poem become a story line by having the reader interpret his thoughts. Frost has the power of using similes when he compares the roads to being fair. Moving through the second stanza he explains that he chose the second road only because he thought it was the rode less taken by any other human. He uses vivid phrases like â€Å"it was  grassy and wanted wear† which makes it known to the readers of this poem that the path he chose to take was the path that not a lot of other people took because it looked fresh without any footsteps. Right when the reader thinks he has figured the poet out, Frost goes and complicates our understanding by comparing the two paths and declaring them equal to one another. Like every great poet, the reader finds everything out line-by-line, which makes his writing more of a mystery than a straightforward poem. In the beginning of the third stanza we learn that it is in fact morning when Frost decides to take the road he has chosen. We figure that out because he writes, â€Å"And both that morning equally lay.† Does he realize that the reason why the road does not look used is because he might be the first person that day to take that path down to success or failure? Frost uses more fancy words in the poem to confuse us but really when he states â€Å"In leaves no step had trodden black.† he mentions the leaves haven’t turned black because people haven’t stepped on them or crushed them. Just like how the leaves survive the night, he compared it to himself in hopes that he will survive as well. Including an epiphany in the writing by saying â€Å"Oh, I kept the first for another day!† not only shows us regret but also shows us some hopes he has in going back one day and taking the road he did not choose the first time around. The next two lines where Frost wrote â€Å" Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back.† really explain the chances of being able to go back are one in a million. It would be foolish of him to think he would have a chance at something that can change in a second. In the final stanza of this great and powerful poem, Frost changes the tense of this poem to where he is in the future looking back to his choices. He uses the word â€Å"sigh† that can portray many meaning as if he said it from happiness or sadness or he is just reflecting upon his experience. But when Frost states â€Å"Somewhere ages and ages hence:† it is obvious that this story he tells us, he will keep telling it many years from now. With a neat way of repeating the first line of the poem he brings his story to an end. The form repetition is used to help put emphasis on the importance of the poem and  with that he says â€Å"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—â€Å" in which he compares himself to the road where he is standing. Frost reflects on his decision of taking the one less traveled in confidences that it has made him more unique. And he ended the poem by expressing his experiences and looking back into his decisions. Frost realizes that if he were to take the road not traveled he would not have experienced all that he did. This ending of the poem shows ambiguity because he wants the richest experience possible. Thinking back on this poem helps us understand life much more, the fact that life is full of irony. In particular to this poem, the title of the poem itself is ironic because it is called â€Å"The Road Not Taken† where in fact he puts more emphasis on the road he DID take. This whole poem has been based around dreams, choices, hopes, and plans for the future. The fact that he uses nature as his surrounding he is metaphorically comparing it to life itself. If you were to dissect this poem further, you would realize that the poem is contradicting the way it is set up. While reading a poem about paths and choices it really it only leads you to think of your own struggles you have been through. I never realized how much I have regretted some of the choices I have made in my life. The only difference between my life and this poem was that I had to choose between not one or two paths but three. It also gets harder to distinguish which path you want when all the paths give you exactly one thing you treasure most. This poem connects to me personally because when I was starting high school I had to make a decision whether I wanted to stay with the crowd of friends I had that included some friends my parents didn’t like or to make new friends which meant I had to open up to people, or initially take it one day at a time even if it meant to hurt my parents and go against their decisions. Ultimately it was somewhat of a loss to me because in any choice I made I lost something that was most important to me. I value friendship so much but I value my parents and their opinion so much more. Until this day I think about how my life would have been different if I didn’t make the decision I did. Life is honestly too short to live with regret but that does  not mean that there won’t be moments where you wish you had done something differently. I am proud of the path I chose and made new friends because in the end I was able to make my parents proud because they liked my new group of friends and I became apart of a new social circle. I never had anything handed to me in my life, whatever I wanted and wished for I was the one in charge for it. Just like Robert Frost I had to stand there and look as far as I could into my future to be able to make the choice that would be most right for me. Even though I lost so many friends that I was once close to, it helped me mature and also became a strong person. In this world we live in, we have to lose certain things to be able to gain more challenges that become second nature to us. The outcome of my choice of choosing to make new friends was that I gained more of my parents’ trust, attention, and love. Love is the most important thing other than health for a family to share. Frost showed me that in order to move forward in life, no matter how uncertain, you just have to give it a try and see what the outcome is. Sometimes it won’t be the outcome in which you wanted to acquire but it wont necessarily be one that you dread for the rest of your life. There will be moments where you will dwell on the past and hoped you had taken another road but you have to focus on the future. Looking back now, I do not regret the choice I made even if it involved losing some friends that had turned into family. Not everything in life is meant to be regretful. There are so many wonderful aspects of life we never figure out because we are too busy worrying about how difficult an obstacle may be. God and life itself puts obstacles in our way to show us we can overcome any hardships. I knew by making my choice to make new friends I myself would become a better person. Just like the ending of Robert Frost’s poem â€Å" And that has made all the difference.†