It is the nature of man to question his own dubious choices. In the poem “The Road Not Taken" Robert Frost employs structure, setting, wording, and rhyme scheme, as well as the title to emphatically state that the heart suffers over that which it left behind. Frost shows that man naturally questions the ambiguity of each decision made.
Frost structures this lyric poem to feel like a journey. He uses four stanzas of five lines each in a progressive unveiling of thought about an uncertain future, and culminates in the nostalgia, the title suggests, for the road not taken. The first stanza begins the extended metaphor of roads and choices, or “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood.” The speaker’s vision of the future is impaired, by “the undergrowth” …show more content…
The first and third lines of each stanza read in descending order; both undergrowth, claim same, black back, and sigh I. The rhyme is essential to the meaning. The end rhyme tells the story as well; wood, both, stood, could, undergrowth, fair, claim, wear, there, same, lay, black, day, way, back, sigh, hence, I, by, ference. The slant rhyme ference can imply deference, which would mean yielding to the decision made. It matches the poem precisely. So, the rhyme scheme evokes subliminal emotion of the uncertainty of the decision.
Without the title, “The Road Not Taken,” this poem could be read in opposition to Frost’s intent. It is common place to hear someone call this poem, “The Road Less Traveled,” assuming the speaker followed a heroic beat of a different drum. On the contrary, Frost uses the irony of aggrandizing a haphazard decision when he ends the poem with “I took the one less travel by, and that made all the difference,” and yet titles it “The Road not taken.”
In the final analysis, the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a narration of the nature of man to emotionally vacillate in decisions that impact life. No matter the decision, it is the nature of man to dream about what might have
Frost structures this lyric poem to feel like a journey. He uses four stanzas of five lines each in a progressive unveiling of thought about an uncertain future, and culminates in the nostalgia, the title suggests, for the road not taken. The first stanza begins the extended metaphor of roads and choices, or “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood.” The speaker’s vision of the future is impaired, by “the undergrowth” …show more content…
The first and third lines of each stanza read in descending order; both undergrowth, claim same, black back, and sigh I. The rhyme is essential to the meaning. The end rhyme tells the story as well; wood, both, stood, could, undergrowth, fair, claim, wear, there, same, lay, black, day, way, back, sigh, hence, I, by, ference. The slant rhyme ference can imply deference, which would mean yielding to the decision made. It matches the poem precisely. So, the rhyme scheme evokes subliminal emotion of the uncertainty of the decision.
Without the title, “The Road Not Taken,” this poem could be read in opposition to Frost’s intent. It is common place to hear someone call this poem, “The Road Less Traveled,” assuming the speaker followed a heroic beat of a different drum. On the contrary, Frost uses the irony of aggrandizing a haphazard decision when he ends the poem with “I took the one less travel by, and that made all the difference,” and yet titles it “The Road not taken.”
In the final analysis, the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a narration of the nature of man to emotionally vacillate in decisions that impact life. No matter the decision, it is the nature of man to dream about what might have