Have you ever been at a restaurant and couldn’t make up you mind what to order? The sea bass or the chicken pasta. Both are about the same price, and you haven’t had either one before. What do you do? Chicken or fish?
In 1916, four time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Robert Frost, wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken”. Since then much has been written, debated and argued about this poem. The last three lines of the last stanza are probably the most famous and perhaps the most misunderstood. They are, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– / I took the one less traveled by, / and that has made all the difference.” Some may take these lines to mean, going your own way is the better option or taking the less traveled path in life builds character and individualism.
This view may be overly romantic and sentimental. More than that, it may be mocking all those who are indecisive. Back to the chicken vs. the fish. I say, if either choice was equally fair because you were hungry and didn’t care, then just order. And please, end this silly affair. In Frost’s poem his speaker reflects on the choice he made as making “all the difference”. Contrary to popularly belief, Frost is having a joke at the speaker, who in retelling his story embellishes the importance of the choice.
Freelance writer and instructor at Oakton Community College and College of Lake County, David Kelly, calls the poem a “failure”. He says in a online article, “For Frost to expect readers to ‘get’ that this indecisive character’s dilemma actually is as simple as it seems shows a touch of naivete on the author’s part.” Kelly is calling out Frost for not leaving more obvious clues to his mocking intention. The reader is left to take Frost at his word: that a specific choice did have a profound effect. Not so.
Some become implicated by wanting to believe in the adventure of the speaker. Others enjoy the pursuit of the speaker’s life results as proof of the path less taken. The reader exaggerates the choice between two paths as being a grand metaphor for life and in so doing overlooks the contradictions of the poem. As if the choice to be a Noble peace prize winner or a bank robber were simple. To sink or swim. To live or die. This is not a choice of life or death.
A confused reader of the poem, Miss Yates, had wondered about the “sigh” in the last stanza of the poem and wrote Frost a letter requesting clarification. Frost’s reply admits a “private jest” and a gentle “teasing”. His reply:
Dear Miss Yates:
No wonder you were a little puzzled over the end of my Road Not Taken. It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life. I suppose I was gently teasing them. I’m not really a very regretful person, but for your solicitousness on my behalf I’m your friend always Robert Frost
Does the “sigh” indicates a regret over a decision made or not made. Frost answers this thinking by stating he is “not really a regretful person”. If one considers the “I” of the quote “sorry for the way I had taken in life” to be reference to the speaker of the poem and not Frost himself we find the “sigh” to be the speaker pausing for dramatic effect to his future audience.
Kelly investigates that last stanza’s contradictions and offers the possibility of a speaker, who “only wishes that he could choose “the one less traveled by.” As if that would be the courageous and “unconventional” approach.
Life is not but one choice that will make all the difference, rather the opportunity to chose and chose often that makes the difference. We live in a world of have to. Have to go to work, pick up kids, pay taxes, write an essay, get that tooth looked at, be the best man, attend funerals, put gas in the car, and on and on. The ability for Frost’s speaker to enjoy a simple walk through the woods with the option chose a path, is of greater value than the choice it’s self.
A guy and his fiance walk into a bar and order a drink. When I was younger I worked as a bar tender at an Italian chain restaurant. I served a couple that would later become my employer and his wife. My “choice” to kindly serve them dinner and drinks that night lead to me making friends and getting a job offer. I often tell the story of that moment as a turning point in my life, that it allowed me to tour (on the road), 48 states, canada, and the Virgin Islands. I say that I was talented, I say that the encounter made all the difference. Though as for that, I did not know him from the previous customer. In a non-embellished hind sight, I was just doing my job. Were my qualities as a good bartender what got me the touring job? Perhaps. Turns out I quit that restaurant job, left my boss hanging to mix drinks herself. Of what quality is a bartender who does that? The decision and its effects are often hidden from the chooser at the time of choosing.
The speaker has spare time, but not too much. Is a self defined traveler and is “sorry [he] could not travel both”. The character of the speaker is, in many ways, predetermined, so that one choice has no great impact. Further, the single choice has little reference with out considering the apparent free will that brought the speaker to the choice at hand. One path over an other.
Frost’s biographer, Laurence Thompson, documented in “Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph 1915-1938”, that Frost had written “The Road Not Taken” as a satire of his friend Edward Thomas. Thomas lived with in Dymock, of Gloucestershire, England and is said to have often gone on walks with Frost.
The University of Gloucestershire recounts the “cottage industry” of writers and poets residing there. Poets including Frost, Wordsworth, Farjeon and Brooke, were moving away from “rhetorically ornate and emotionally restricted” literary “idiom” and moving towards “inspiration in natural settings and everyday experiences.” It is with in these everyday experiences that Frost and Thomas shared ideas and built a friendship. The University credits Thomas with aiding the formation of Frost’s “new poetic philosophy”.
Many years later at the 1953 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference on August 23rd Frost provides some detail on the inspiration of his speaker. Frost clarifies, “I wasn’t thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other. He was hard on himself that way.”
When Thomas went to fight in World War I, Frost sent him the poem and received the reply, “I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing without showing them and advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on.” This reply illustrates that his friend is aware of a subtile joke but knows it will be difficult to share with Frost’s audience with out knowledge of the speaker’s personally. Frost is enormously successful as a poet even if one of his more popular poems is misinterpreted. He must enjoy the allusion of the poem for he does not aim to correct the interpretation. He has been quoted at the Breadwinners conference as saying, “The Road Not Taken” is a “tricky poem”. Upholding the reader’s own interpretation by not confirming or denying the specifics shows the mischievous nature of Frost. And that has made all the difference.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken” 1916. Approaching Literature: Writing + Reading + Thinking. 2nd ed. Ed. Peter, Schakel and Jack Ridl. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008. 667.
Kelly, David. English Literature: Every thing about English Literature. 21 July 2009
Finger, L. L. Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’: a 1925 Letter come to Light. American Literature v.50
University of Gloucestershire. Writers and Artists Collection Dymock Poets Archive. 21 July 2009.
Pritchard H, William. On “The Road Not Taken. 21 July 2009
Thompson, Lawrance Roger. Robert Frost the Years of Triumph, 1915-1938. Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1966
The Choice Was Inconsequential
Have you ever been at a restaurant and couldn’t make up you mind what to order? The sea bass or the chicken pasta. Both are about the same price, and you haven’t had either one before. What do you do? Chicken or fish?
In 1916, four time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Robert Frost, wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken”. Since then much has been written, debated and argued about this poem. The last three lines of the last stanza are probably the most famous and perhaps the most misunderstood. They are, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– / I took the one less traveled by, / and that has made all the difference.” Some may take these lines to mean, going your own way is the better option or taking the less traveled path in life builds character and individualism.
This view may be overly romantic and sentimental. More than that, it may be mocking all those who are indecisive. Back to the chicken vs. the fish. I say, if either choice was equally fair because you were hungry and didn’t care, then just order. And please, end this silly affair. In Frost’s poem his speaker reflects on the choice he made as making “all the difference”. Contrary to popularly belief, Frost is having a joke at the speaker, who in retelling his story embellishes the importance of the choice.
Freelance writer and instructor at Oakton Community College and College of Lake County, David Kelly, calls the poem a “failure”. He says in a online article, “For Frost to expect readers to ‘get’ that this indecisive character’s dilemma actually is as simple as it seems shows a touch of naivete on the author’s part.” Kelly is calling out Frost for not leaving more obvious clues to his mocking intention. The reader is left to take Frost at his word: that a specific choice did have a profound effect. Not so.
Some become implicated by wanting to believe in the adventure of the speaker. Others enjoy the pursuit of the speaker’s life results as proof of the path less taken. The reader exaggerates the choice between two paths as being a grand metaphor for life and in so doing overlooks the contradictions of the poem. As if the choice to be a Noble peace prize winner or a bank robber were simple. To sink or swim. To live or die. This is not a choice of life or death.
A confused reader of the poem, Miss Yates, had wondered about the “sigh” in the last stanza of the poem and wrote Frost a letter requesting clarification. Frost’s reply admits a “private jest” and a gentle “teasing”. His reply:
Dear Miss Yates:
No wonder you were a little puzzled over the end of my Road Not Taken. It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life. I suppose I was gently teasing them. I’m not really a very regretful person, but for your solicitousness on my behalf I’m your friend always Robert Frost
Does the “sigh” indicates a regret over a decision made or not made. Frost answers this thinking by stating he is “not really a regretful person”. If one considers the “I” of the quote “sorry for the way I had taken in life” to be reference to the speaker of the poem and not Frost himself we find the “sigh” to be the speaker pausing for dramatic effect to his future audience.
Kelly investigates that last stanza’s contradictions and offers the possibility of a speaker, who “only wishes that he could choose “the one less traveled by.” As if that would be the courageous and “unconventional” approach.
Life is not but one choice that will make all the difference, rather the opportunity to chose and chose often that makes the difference. We live in a world of have to. Have to go to work, pick up kids, pay taxes, write an essay, get that tooth looked at, be the best man, attend funerals, put gas in the car, and on and on. The ability for Frost’s speaker to enjoy a simple walk through the woods with the option chose a path, is of greater value than the choice it’s self.
A guy and his fiance walk into a bar and order a drink. When I was younger I worked as a bar tender at an Italian chain restaurant. I served a couple that would later become my employer and his wife. My “choice” to kindly serve them dinner and drinks that night lead to me making friends and getting a job offer. I often tell the story of that moment as a turning point in my life, that it allowed me to tour (on the road), 48 states, canada, and the Virgin Islands. I say that I was talented, I say that the encounter made all the difference. Though as for that, I did not know him from the previous customer. In a non-embellished hind sight, I was just doing my job. Were my qualities as a good bartender what got me the touring job? Perhaps. Turns out I quit that restaurant job, left my boss hanging to mix drinks herself. Of what quality is a bartender who does that? The decision and its effects are often hidden from the chooser at the time of choosing.
The speaker has spare time, but not too much. Is a self defined traveler and is “sorry [he] could not travel both”. The character of the speaker is, in many ways, predetermined, so that one choice has no great impact. Further, the single choice has little reference with out considering the apparent free will that brought the speaker to the choice at hand. One path over an other.
Frost’s biographer, Laurence Thompson, documented in “Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph 1915-1938”, that Frost had written “The Road Not Taken” as a satire of his friend Edward Thomas. Thomas lived with in Dymock, of Gloucestershire, England and is said to have often gone on walks with Frost.
The University of Gloucestershire recounts the “cottage industry” of writers and poets residing there. Poets including Frost, Wordsworth, Farjeon and Brooke, were moving away from “rhetorically ornate and emotionally restricted” literary “idiom” and moving towards “inspiration in natural settings and everyday experiences.” It is with in these everyday experiences that Frost and Thomas shared ideas and built a friendship. The University credits Thomas with aiding the formation of Frost’s “new poetic philosophy”.
Many years later at the 1953 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference on August 23rd Frost provides some detail on the inspiration of his speaker. Frost clarifies, “I wasn’t thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other. He was hard on himself that way.”
When Thomas went to fight in World War I, Frost sent him the poem and received the reply, “I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing without showing them and advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on.” This reply illustrates that his friend is aware of a subtile joke but knows it will be difficult to share with Frost’s audience with out knowledge of the speaker’s personally. Frost is enormously successful as a poet even if one of his more popular poems is misinterpreted. He must enjoy the allusion of the poem for he does not aim to correct the interpretation. He has been quoted at the Breadwinners conference as saying, “The Road Not Taken” is a “tricky poem”. Upholding the reader’s own interpretation by not confirming or denying the specifics shows the mischievous nature of Frost. And that has made all the difference.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken” 1916. Approaching Literature: Writing + Reading + Thinking. 2nd ed. Ed. Peter, Schakel and Jack Ridl. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008. 667.
Kelly, David. English Literature: Every thing about English Literature. 21 July 2009
Finger, L. L. Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’: a 1925 Letter come to Light. American Literature v.50
University of Gloucestershire. Writers and Artists Collection Dymock Poets Archive. 21 July 2009.
Pritchard H, William. On “The Road Not Taken. 21 July 2009
Thompson, Lawrance Roger. Robert Frost the Years of Triumph, 1915-1938. Henry Holt & Company, Inc., 1966