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Tone Of The Road Not Taken

Decent Essays

Choices Define Us Growing up, almost everyone has heard the common phrase, “We are our choices.” Although Robert Frost did not come up with that saying, his poem, “The Road Not Taken” encompasses what that phrase means. In summary, this poem is about a traveler who comes to what we know as a “fork in the road” and needs to decide which way to continue. After much thought, the traveler decides to choose the “road less traveled by.” However, the traveler seems to think he might be able to come back someday and walk down the other path. Deep down, the traveler knows he won’t be able to walk the other road and part of him regrets his decision, but he’s also accepted his decision knowing that his choice makes him, him. In Robert Frost’s poem, …show more content…

When one sighs, it is usually a sigh of relief or a sigh of discontent. In the final stanza, it is difficult to determine the connotation in which the “sigh” possesses. For instance, the reader may think the sigh could represent happiness because in the final lines of the poem, the narrator says, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference” (lines 17-19). The narrator seems happy with his choice at the end of the poem, but it could also be interpreted as discontent. The narrator eventually decides to take a path because it really doesn’t matter, whichever path he chooses; “Though as far as the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same” (8-9) he has no idea where he will end up. With that in mind, the reader realizes that the sigh is most likely one of discontent. Since the poem is about choices we make in life, and the sigh creates a negative tone, it is clear “The Road Not Taken” reflects the difficult choices we must make and ultimately, how our choices affect us in the end. Critic George Montiero provides insight as to why Frost would use a sigh in his poem. It is necessary to point out that Frost wrote this poem about his friend Edward Thomas, who he often took long walks with. Montiero furthers our …show more content…

The title of any sort of work gives the reader their first glimpse into what they are about to experience and can foreshadow the main message of the work. Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” is no exception to this idea. One of Frost’s main themes is about the difficult choices people must make throughout their lifetime. We can also sense the ambiguity that Frost feels because he did not choose a title that was positive. For example, something along the lines of “The Road Taken” would symbolize Frost’s acceptance of the path he chose. His inclusion of the word, “not” in the title represents the regret, uncertainty, and curiosity of the road he did not take. The title sets the mood for the rest of the poem and that mood is negative and gloomy. Critic Robert Faggen further clarifies that, “The title refers doubly to bravado for choosing a road less traveled but also to regret for a road of lost possibility and the eliminations and changes produced by choice. "The Road Not Taken " reminds us of the consequences of the principle of selection in all aspects of life, namely that all choices in knowledge or in action exclude many others and lead to an ironic recognition of our achievements” (Faggen). Faggen reminds us that the title is about the road not taken. He sheds light on the title to help us understand that although one

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