The Road Not Taken and the Journey of Life :: Road Not Taken essays

The Road Not Taken and the Journey of Life   This poem by Robert Frost was first read to me in the pass away year of my high school experience.  Back then, not only did I have absolutely no interest in any literary work, yet moreover, had no intension to lye there and analyze a poem into its symbolic definitions.  Only now have I been taught the proper way to read a literary work as a formalistic critic might read.  With this new approach to literature I can understand the underlying subject matter to Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken.  In addition to merely grasping the authors intension, I was able to justly incur that this poem, without directly mentioning anything about lifes finishs, is in its sum about just that.         Robert Frost interpreted most of the decisions we make in life into this twenty-line poem of a man choosing which path to take in a yellow wood.  Everyday I make a decision to do a certain task, t ake that certain walk, or to sit at home and do absolutely nothing.  Being one person, I can never know for sure what the exact outcome might be if I were to choose the other decision.  For instance, I take a leisurely walk every night and I sacrifice my time to do something else.  Although this may not always account to me personally, I do sometimes think what the other choice may have brought me.  And often times, I complete the task with a sense of relief, a sigh perhaps, that the choice I made turned to be a well-made decision.  Though most people rarely check into the sacrifice of decision making the way Robert Frost does, it is indeed a highly examined way too understand a path less traveled by.         The first stanza introduced the reader to the decision the author would have to make.  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood to me signified that the result of his decision would arise from the same origin to which i n my own life, I can reflect on.  And though he would like to have seen the outcome of both paths, he knew he could only choose one.  And to help him decide, he would look down both choices and see only until the road took a bend.