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Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is a poem which
seems to have an obvious, straightforward meaning. However,
ambiguity in the language allows for multiple interpretations to be
made. Some poems, such as Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The
Windhover” and ee cummings’ “In just—,” use the ambiguity of
meanings of individual words to create uncertainty about the
meaning. Other forms of art, such as the René Magritte painting
Euclidean Walks, use images that can be interpreted as more than
one thing. This is similar to the ambiguity of individual words.
The type of ambiguity present in “The Road Not Taken,”
however, is more similar to that in Ray Davies’ song “Lola.”
Rather than the definitions of individual words being primarily
the source of ambiguity, it is the meaning of the phrases and the
images presented by theses phrases that create a sense of
ambiguity. This sort of ambiguity affects the meaning of the
poem as a whole, while still allowing it to mostly maintain a
consistent literal representation of actions that occur, regardless
of what the deeper meaning of the actions is interpreted to be.
In “The Road Not Taken,” Frost uses ambiguity to question the
control people have over the supposed choices in their lives,
while affirming the importance of the result of the actions taken
at these crossroads in life.
A common initial opinion of the meaning of “The Road
Not Taken,” is that it seems to present an uplifting message about
individualism. Choosing the road “less traveled by” makes it
sounds as if the narrator is being himself, and choosing to travel
the path not many take (19). This might even be applied to
common perceptions of morality, since the path of the righteous
is commonly associated in Christian, as well as other cultures, as
being a path that few people choose. Despite the fact that this is
a perfectly justifiable claim as to the meaning of the poem, it
does not necessarily make it the right one.
One interpretation, often associated with the previous
one, is that the traveler is contented with the path that was taken.
This comes from the final stanza, especially the last line, “I took
the road less traveled by, / And that has made all the
difference”(19-20). Most readers take this to mean that the
difference that was made was a positive difference and changed
the live of the traveler for the better. However, there is no
language in the poem to denote this. It could just as well have
made “all the difference” for the worse. In the only lines in the
poem in future, rather than past, tense, the narrator says, “I shall
be telling this with a sigh, / Somewhere in ages hence” (16-17).
Nothing in the poem tells us whether this is a sigh of joy or of
regret. The use of future tense reminds readers they are listening
to a narrator talk about past events in a story that the narrator
will continue to tell in the future, whether the message be
thankful or regretful. Already, it is easy to see how different
interpretations of the same poem can be diametrically opposed
to one another. Just as the initial possibilities of the gender of
Lola in Ray Davies’ song “Lola” were completely opposite, so too
are the possibilities of the attitude of the traveler towards the
path that “made all the difference.”
Another common interpretation of the poem assumes
there is a difference between the two paths. However there is no
specific evidence of this in the poem either. The first stanza
begins to explain that the first path is “bent in the undergrowth,”
which only sounds slightly negative because of the word ‘bent,’
but being bent is not necessarily a bad thing for a path to be (5).
Furthermore, the other path is never described as being any
straighter, so there is no way to compare this feature of the first
path to the second. The poem then goes on to tell how the
traveler “took the other, as just as fair” (6). This seems to say
that the second path was just as good as the first, making neither
path superior. This is compounded by the fact that “the passing
of time / Had worn them really about the same,” which also
seems to hint at their similarity rather than difference (9-10). The
poem even states in the third stanza that “both that morning
equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black” (11-12). Both
paths are covered in the same leaves, but the meaning of “equally
lay” is subject to interpretation. Certainly it suggests some kind
of similarity, but to what extent? Are the paths identical, or do
they simply share a similar feature, such as the same width? All
of these questions respond to the hint about similarity.
Some would claim the difference between the two paths
is that the second path is described as “having perhaps the better
claim, / Because is was grassy and wanted wear” (8). However,
this does not mean that the other path was not grassy as well.
Since the poem does not state whether the first path was grassy
or not, it is also possible that this is a difference between the two.
The words “better claim” seem to denote that there may be a
difference since there should be some difference in order for one
path to be considered “better” than another. The difference
between the two paths is ambiguous since it is both possible for
the paths to have significant differences or to be more or less
identical. The ambiguity results since neither can be proven.
This leads back to the idea that the poem presents the
theme of individualism. It seems as if the traveler has a choice as
to which path is traveled. There is no specific mention of a
choice. According to the poem, the traveler “looked down one
[path]…Then took the other” (4-6). At the end the traveler
states, “I took the one less traveled by” (19). These are the only
two actions the traveler took with respect to the paths throughout
the poem. Since no word such as ‘choose’ or ‘pick’ was used, it is
impossible to prove that the traveler made a decision about which
path to take. On top of that, if the paths were indeed not so
different, which has been proven to be a possibility, there was no
real choice for the traveler to make in the first place. The path he
“took” can be relegated to destiny or fate, perhaps even the will
of God (or the Force, for that matter). However, there is no
language in the poem that indicates any of this, so it should be
disregarded as a case of Occam’s Razor. Since the poem does
not tell the reader that the traveler had a choice, or did not have a
choice, this is another case of ambiguity within the poem.
From what has been discovered about “The Road Not
Taken,” it is possible that there was a difference between the two
paths, and the traveler chose the better of the two, or that the
worse was chosen. It is also possible that the traveler chose
between two essentially identical paths, or that there was no
choice at all, regardless of whether the paths were similar or not.
The presence of these ambiguities makes the reader think about
the meaning of choices in life. The final line, “I took the road
less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference,” seems to
indicate the fact that taking a particular path has profound impact
on your life (19-20). However, it raises questions about whether
you actually have a choice at these junctures, or whether you
simply “took” the path you are on without any control over it.
Can one actually make oneself an individual based upon these
choices, or is there some deterministic force that only creates this
illusion? Beyond whether a person has a choice or not, we might
ask if there are truly different paths in life, or are all more or less
the same? Frost’s use of ambiguity creates questions in the
reader’s mind that the poem does not provide the answer to.
Frost is challenging his readers to consider the manner in which
choices in life are presented to them and what choice they think
they actually have.
Despite any uncertainty present, “The Road Not Taken”
has shown that it is certain that there are crossroads in life. Of
these intersecting paths, only one may be taken, since the traveler
“could not travel both / And be one traveler,” regardless of
desire for both (2-3). One must also realize that his or her
decision, should he or she have one, is final, as the traveler
realizes, “knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I
should ever come back” (14-15).
The title of the poem is not “The Road Less Traveled”
but “The Road Not Taken.” This reminds the reader that while
the focus seems to be on the road that is traveled, it is important
to consider the roads that are not traveled, and how, if at all, our
lives would be different had we taken the other path. Frost wants
the reader to know it makes a difference what path your life takes,
but at the same time, through his use of ambiguous language, he
questions our ability to control which path we finally take.
Work Cited
Frost, Robert. The Poetry of Robert Frost. Ed. Edward Connery
Lathem. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1979. |