Analysis: The Road Not Taken

Have you ever wondered if the choices that you make really matter? In Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” he explores the finality of your decisions and how they will affect you in “ages and ages hence.” In the poem Mr. Frost discusses taking a walk through a “yellow woods” as he comes across a fork in the path and deliberates over which path to take. Robert Frost utilizes Form, Imagery, and Symbolism to portray how your choices affect you forever. Robert Frost employs form to show that choices matter. He uses commas to show how taking time to think over a decision, even a second, is for the best. In the poem he uses commas like “Then took the other, as just as fair,” to show that he is pausing in his decision. He is deliberating which choice to make. He uses periods to show that he is firm in whatever decision he makes. When he used periods in “I doubted if I should ever come back.” he had already decided on which path to choose. Periods show a finality to his decisions. Later, Robert Frost makes use of dashes to show that even in “ages and ages hence” he still thinks of the choice he made. When he says “and I--I took the one less traveled” the dashes are stutters like the decision still is on his mind. The dashes show how his decisions affected him …show more content…
These two roads in the poem stand for a decision that he had to make. “Two roads diverged in a wood” this means he had two choices and they split apart from each other heading in different directions. Robert Frost says “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I shall ever come back.” He knows that the decision he makes here is permanent, but he wants to feel like he can always come back. However, he knows that life moves on with few, if any second chances. His decision “has made all the difference.” He is not the same as he once was his future has changed based on this one