Essay, Research Paper: The Road Not Taken

Choices are never easy and people face multitudes of them in their lifetime. Some decisions to these choices are clear while others are sometimes more difficult to achieve. The poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a first person narrative tale of a monumental moment in the speaker's life- Frost can be considered the speaker. Frost is faced between the choice of a moment and a lifetime manifested in his poem. Walking down a rural road the narrator encounters a point on his travel that diverges into two separate similar paths. In Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken", Frost presents the idea of man facing the difficult unalterable predilection of a moment and a lifetime. This idea in Frost's poem is embodied in the fork in the road, the decision between the two paths, and the speaker's decision to select the road not taken.
Man's life can be metaphorically related to a physical journey filled with many twists and turns. Through out this journey there are instants where choices between alternate paths have to be made- the route man decides to take is not always an easy one to determine. The fork in the road represents the speaker's encounter of having to choose from two paths a direction that will affect his the rest of his life ( ). Frost presents to the reader a moment in anyone's life where an arduous problematic choice has to be made. There are an abundance of options in life man faces; Frost symbolizes this into the diverging of the two paths in his poem. The decision for which path to choose from can be hard to accept, just as the revelation of the choices.
The two paths represent the options man has to choose from. Faced with these decisions, man has to weigh his options carefully to make an optimal choice. At the split in the road, the speaker looks far down both the two paths to see what each of the paths will bring. The speaker's sight is limited- his eyes can only see the path until it bends into "the undergrowth." The author shows man's attempts to tell which path is better by trying to for see what they will behold down the road. Both roads diverge into a "yellow wood" and appear to be "about the same" in their purpose. The first of the two paths is the more common route than the other less traveled path, which "wanted wear." Frost presents a classic conflict- the decision between the common easy path and the exceptional challenging path. Choosing the already known easy path in life many people frequently endure reassures that the outcome will be predictable. While choosing the "less traveled" road represents the gamble of facing a more difficult path in life in hopes to achieve an incomparable and satisfactory life, contrasting the more familiar lives other people take.
The road not taken delineates man's choice. After vacillating between the two "fair" roads, he finally decides to take the road "less traveled by"; knowing he cannot see where it will lead. Traveling down the second road, the speaker still yearns to travel both paths- he "keeps the first for another day." As the narrator proceeds down the unworn path, he realizes there will be no way he can ever return to the deviation to experience the other route. The speakers utters:
"Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back."
Frost presents man's limitation to explore life's different possibilities. The narrator "sighs" at the end of the poem gratified with his choice to take the uncommon road, yet also sighing that he may have missed something. Making "all the difference" by taking the road "less traveled" the speaker becomes a product of his decision. Frost exhibits satisfaction for enduring the uncommon route, but at the same time he "sighs" with lamentation, pondering what he may have missed on the alternate avenue. As successful life's turnouts may be, there is always regret wondering how another path taken in life brings about other experiences.
"The Road Not Taken" can be interpreted universally as a representation of two similar choices. At the beginning the options seem comparable, but they will increasingly contrast with each other as they diverge in their separate ways. Faced with very similar choices man tries to examine what they have to offer, but often is not able to for tell the consequences. Man can opt to go the common route, which is the more reliable, and have a common life or he can undergo the less common route, which is unknown and often difficult, and have a unique life that stands out above everyone else's life. The choices a person makes in life are ultimately responsible for their future, yet at the same time a person can never go back to the past and experience other possibilities. It is unfeasible to predict the outcomes of capital decisions we make; often it is essential to make these decisions fixed on nothing more than questioning which selection will provide fulfillment. In the end, we reflect over the decisions we have made, and like Frost, sigh, discovering they have made "all the difference."