“The Road Not Taken”

“The Road Not Taken” has many different interpretations. Everyone is a traveler choosing the roads to follow on their continuous journey in life. When reading this poem it all depends on your life experiences in the past, present, and your outlook on the future how you interpret it.

In the first stanza, the emphasis is on the road that was not traveled. Frost wants to travel both

but he cannot “and be one traveler.” The poem shows that he believes that it is the road that one chooses in life that makes him the man he is. The is a strong sense of regret before the choice is made because he knows that in one lifetime he cannot travel down every road. Before making the final decision on which path to take, the traveler “looked down one as far as I could.” The road that is chosen leads to the unknown, as the same with any choice in life. It is the way that he chooses here that sets him off on his journey and decides where he is going.

He takes the other road that is “grassy and wanted wear.” The road he chooses has a “better claim” because it is the road that is less traveled on. By taking this road it shows that he is the type of person that wants to try something new and different.

The leaves that cover the ground have not been stepped on and “no step had trodden black,” indicates that no one has walked down the road since the leaves had fallen, therefore describing a road not traveled. “I kept the first for another day” still shows the desire to travel down both paths. At the end of the poem, “ I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence,” shows he knows someday he will look back and have some regret that he did not go back and take the other road. “I took the road less traveled by, And that has made all the difference” means that he does not regret choosing the less traveled road because if he had not he would not have had the life experiences that he did.