Year 11 English 200 Word Analysis of Poem The Road Not Taken: Robert Frost

The physical and literal meaning of ‘the road not taken’ by Robert Frost is quite obvious. The narrator, in this case a traveller, has come to a fork in the road whilst walking through a “yellow wood”, and needs to make a decision on how to proceed on his journey. After much reasoning, the traveller chooses the road that is “grassy and wanted wear”, in other words, the road that looked as if it had been travelled on less.

Although this poem is written about a physical journey along a road, and choosing which fork to take, there is also a figurative meaning to it. The road itself is an extended metaphor used to show the idea of a journey as the choices in life, and this essentially implies that life itself is a journey. The line “I shall be telling this with a sigh” seems to hold a tone of regret, and this signifies that the persona regrets leaving behind the possibilities of the road not taken.

Despite the fact that it is sometimes possible to go back and take the other fork in the road, life is too short for anybody to retrace their steps for each turning point during their life, and to travel back through every single diversion during one’s life would be impossible, thus ‘the road not taken’ expresses the idea of a journey as the poem depicts a fork in the road as the choices in life.