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Road Not Taken Tone

Decent Essays

Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken” centers on the concept of choice. Through the use of the central symbol, the poem expresses both the uncertainty of making a choice and the expectations of the choice made between seemingly equal options. The tone of the poem shifts throughout to show the decision-making process and the regret of choosing wrongly. While the poem gently ironizes the human response to decision making, it is also filled with the anticipation of remorse. Initially, the first significant thing about the poem comes from its title “The Road Not Taken”, which presumably refers to an unused option. In the first stanza, the speaker reaches a fork in the road while walking through the “yellow wood” (line 1) and wishes that he could travel both routes but knows it is impractical. The emphasis of uncertainty of which path to take suggests that the road is symbolic. The way the speaker compares and contemplates both paths with hesitation implies that the road is a metaphor for his life. In the first two stanzas, the tone is reflective, contemplative and indecisive as the speaker considers the two paths, “long I stood” (3). Although the speaker doesn’t tell us too much about himself, we know he is conflicted and facing a big …show more content…

The speaker questions his future of what is permanently lost as it is impossible to go back and take the unknown path. Ironically, on the other hand, the speaker is at peace knowing that there is no right choice since both paths are equally important, “I shall be telling this with a sigh” (16). There is no right path, just the chosen one and the other path. What is “sighed” (16) for “ages and ages hence” (17) is not about the wrong decisions made, but the moments of decisions themselves which mark the passing of a life and “has made all the difference”

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