Archive for February 2002

An analysis of Frost’s The Road Not Taken

21st February 2002 @ 00:36 PST | 15 comments

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” appears to be a rather simple poem with an audibly appealing structure and a simple subject. He leads the reader through the woods, to a fork in the road. There, he pauses long enough to make a decision and presses onward. All is not what it seems; hiding behind the words, lines, and stanzas of this straightforward storyline is a tale of the experience called life. It is a tale of what every sentient being goes through on a recurrent basis in regards to dilemmas and the decision-making process. It also explicates how their mode of thought plays a significant role in carving each individual future. “The Road Not Taken” is complexity of prose wrapped up in the colloquial clothing of poetry.

From a denotative standpoint, Frost’s poem offers the reader a momentary glimpse into the mindset of a traveler faced with a choice of roads to follow on a trek through a yellow-wooded area. The roads seem superficially equal, yet for somewhat tenuous reasons the road that appears “less traveled” is more appealing. Again mulling over which path he should take, the traveler ultimately chooses to obey his initial intuitive notions. Should his journeys carry him to this particular juncture at a later date and time, he is willing to follow the road that he did not take the first time. Unfortunately, he is highly doubtful of ever returning to this location in the future. He predicts that in the years ahead, when he reflects back upon this day’s walk in the woods, he will sigh and wonder what beauties of Nature would he have seen if he had only selected to follow the other path. Though he will ponder what could have been, he will be quite happy with the fact that he had followed “the one less traveled by.”

Mark Richardson argues that this poem is an example of how the choices one makes in life are not truly objective, rational decisions, but rather spontaneous, irrational, and intuitive responses to a given situation. The traveler discerns and believes that there is a difference between the two roads, but later states that they bear no distinction. Oddly, despite his comment to their similarity, the traveler makes a decision as to which road to follow based upon his initial contradictory assertion. He forces himself into a paradox of sorts. The reader must assume that his decision was based upon some other methodology of selection. Perhaps the journey leads the traveler to perceive the two options in a different light—a light of which the reader has no knowledge.

But it is only by setting out, by working our way well into the wood, that we begin to understand the meaning of the choices we make and the character of the self that is making them; in fact, only then can we properly understand our actions as choices (Richardson 1).

Richardson believes that humans, like the traveler, are “too much in the middle of things” to determine why they do the things that they do (Richardson 1).

Line-by-line, one can interpret this poem as a metaphor relating the choice between two roads to a tough decision in life. This interpretation documents the common experience of choosing between virtually equivalent decisions that could lead to vastly differing outcomes down the road.

The first three lines of the poem describe a person’s initial encounter with a dilemma, where “Two roads [diverge].” One feels a sense of dread at the thought of choosing poorly between two equal options, wishing that one could travel both paths, testing both options; living two simultaneous lives with only a single consciousness, “[being] one traveler.” In a manner of speaking, one does travel both simultaneously. If one believes in the theory of multiple universes, where all possible interactions between quantum probability waves exist as segments of an endlessly bifurcating set of multidimensional objects, then the dilemma is a location on one’s object where the timelines split and the multidimensional version of one’s self flows down both causality chains in unison. The downside to this view of the problem is that each portion of the self is not aware of how the lives of the others are progressing. Each lives through its own independent set of experiences. If a portion selects one path over another potentially better choice, it can rest assured that somewhere, there is another portion that chooses the alternative option, destined to lead the mysteriously unknown life that the first portion can no longer lead.

The next two lines of the poem depict the somewhat futile attempt to extrapolate the flow of days to come based upon the knowledge of the now, in determining which option leads to a better future. When faced with a tough decision, one constructs a rudimentary decision tree in an attempt to map all possible outcomes from a small set of mutually exclusive options. Alas, this is a futile attempt for long-term predictions, as the human mind is incapable of accounting for every possible variable; the effects of those factors not taken into consideration compound as the tree grows. This is one possible reason why the traveler only “look[s] down as far as [he] could/To where [the path] bent in the undergrowth.” It is at that bend that the plausible extent of his predictions begins to fall away towards mere speculation.

The following set of seven lines lays the groundwork for the paradox behind human decision-making on which Richardson’s critique focuses. The first three lines explain the how the less-followed path and often-ignored option seem to be draped in a lace of intrigue that piques one’s curiosity. Rote, repeatable, fully understood tasks and actions bore the agile human mind. It is often excited at the prospect of doing something new, something never done before. When faced with two paths, two options, it favors that which “[has] perhaps the better claim.” In the case of the choice of two paths in a wood, the interesting path was selected because it was simply “grassy and wanted wear.” The latter four lines counter the ideas presented in the prior set. When the rational human mind peruses the list of options when given a dilemma, it can often find no features that would distinguish one from the other, because both options are “worn really about the same.” It is apparent that two separate modes of thought are present in this set of seven lines. The first is an intuitive, instinctual, desperate search for the better of the two options by using irrationality. The second mode is a purely logical, superficial comparison based on each option’s individual merit operating on rationality. The ability of the traveler to oscillate between the two modes of thought seems to indicate that people, when faced with difficult situations, operate on a careful blend of both in order to fulfill their desires for resolution.

The next set of three lines mentions the fact that once a decision is made, it cannot be unmade. One can never return to a dilemma with exactly the same set of circumstances as the original was encountered. All of the intricacies of daily life compound within the boundaries of the cranium to produce an incredibly complex, irreversible, chaotic structure. Even if every physical condition could be accounted for, the simple fact that the brain retains this chaotic structure of information for an indeterminate length of time nullifies the attempt to revisit a past problem. The traveler states, “knowing how way leads on to way,/I [doubt] if I should ever come back,” with the knowledge of the fact that there are no second chances in life to replay a decision.

Lines 16 and 17 refer to the state that one befalls when reflecting upon a tough decision of the past. By choosing to follow a specific flow of time and events, many experiences were neglected or quickly passed into the realm of unknowing. Since these events never came to pass, speculation as to their content is futile. All alternative futures, such as the one stemming from a minor dilemma in one’s past, lack enough definitive details that a seed is planted in the unquenchable curiosity of the human mind; unfulfilled longing for something that is just out of reach is enough to drive many people to sigh, as the traveler does in the poem.

Lines 18 and 19 clearly state and reinforce the resolution of the dilemma. One is faced with a decision of very high import when “Two roads [diverge].” It is often the innate human desire for exploration and discovery that assumes control of the mind, guiding one towards the option with the greater chance of heading into the territory of the unknown, where predictability is low and enjoyment is quite high. The traveler “took the [road] less traveled by” because it held the highest hope of leading into the realm of originality and intrigue.

The final line is perhaps the best of the entire poem. By selecting an option that led to new adventures and new discoveries, the traveler states that it “has made all the difference.” The enjoyment found in a trip lies not in the destination, but in the journey itself. It matters not what unfortunate circumstances await one at the conclusion of a quest or at the end of a game; what matters is that one enjoyed the quest or had fun playing the game. Similarly, when faced with a difficult decision in life, one must think more of how best to enjoy arriving at an eventual goal instead of how to eventually arrive at the best goal.

When “The Road Not Taken” is examined as one continuous and flowing piece of craftsmanship through the goggles of insight found amid the text, its complete message is laid bare. In a flash of trees and a rolling path, the unknown finds us and offers us to take a step: left or right. Given this one chance to make a correct decision, we will always be haunted by that which could have been, unless one way is shown to be clear. When is this difference truly there, and when is it just an illusory fabrication of a mind feigning madness? The truth matters not, because it is in the path we follow, not in the destination, that the joy of life is experienced. To follow the path well, we must let our mind wander across the vast field of available options, letting it determine the form of our life’s delight.

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