Robert Frost Poetry

¶ … Road not Taken, Robert Frost uses the setting, mood, and characterization to help illuminate the theme of choice symbolized by the road not taken. The poem uses various literary devices to describe choice. The poem is set in the woods, where two roads diverge. The setting is symbolic. The roads represent choice. The poem has a contemplative mood. Each of the choices is appealing The traveler knows that choosing one road means choosing not to follow the other road.

The poem has a complex structure with: Four five-line stanzas; ABAAB rhyme structure; Iambic tetrameter; and D. The use of some anapests. Frost uses an unnamed narrator in the poem A. Old enough to have made choices Not an old person because the narrator expects to age Poetry Analysis: The Road not Taken by Robert Frost In The Road not Taken, Robert Frost uses the narrator's voice to describe a man looking back at his life and contemplating his choices.

The narrator describes a pivotal decision-point in his life as encountering two roads in a wood. He glances down both of the paths, judges them to be about the same in their nature and character, and then chooses to take the road that has had less wear and fewer passengers. Although the narrator of the poem is, presumably, an older man, he is describing a decision made when he is younger. Therefore, one of the significant themes of the poem is youth.

Another theme of the poem is nature; he describes these life-choices in terms of how they would appear in a natural setting and how each of them would appear if given the actual wear that would result from those traveling upon them. Another significant theme of the poem is the nature of choice. These themes become clear as one examines the other elements of the poem including setting, mood, literary devices, and the characterization of the narrator. The setting of the poem is clear.

It begins "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," making it clear that the narrator is standing in a yellow wood (Frost, 1916). The setting is described further than that; one of the roads is well-trodden, the other has not seen as much wear. They bend into the undergrowth, suggesting that, while the beginnings of the paths are well-defined, the observer cannot where they end or what hazards they may hold from the beginning of the trail. While the setting is clear, it is not the literal setting of the poem.

Instead, the setting of the poem is symbolic. The yellow woods themselves have little meaning other than as a place where the narrator is put in the position of having to make a choice between two pleasant alternatives: "And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler" (Frost, 1916). Therefore, the yellow wood could symbolize almost any time that a person would be placed in the position of making a choice between two alternatives.

However, it is important to realize that the narrator's described choices are not unpleasant ones; both paths look pleasant and he describes wanting to take both of them. Therefore, the yellow wood is not describing choosing between two difficult or unpleasant paths, but between two appealing alternatives. The mood of the poem is contemplative. The narrator describes the two paths he faced in detail, describing both of them as appealing and making explanations as to why he chose one path over the other.

The poem describes the narrator as making a choice to take one path first, not with the desire of abandoning the other path, but, instead, simply saving it for another day. Though the narrator describes that choice, there is also an acknowledgment that making the choice will almost certainly foreclose his other possibilities. In fact, the narrator specifically acknowledges, "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back" (Frost, 1916).

Therefore, there is an acknowledgment that, by choosing one path, the narrator also made a choice not to take another path, even if there was no definitive rejection of that other path. Frost uses a seemingly basic, but actually complex, structure in the poem. The poem is divided into four stanzas with five lines each. Frost uses rhyming in the poem, and his rhyme pattern is that lines one, three, and four all end with rhyming words, as do lines two and five.

When read aloud, the poem has a basic iambic structure; it features an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, though there are some variations to the meter in the course of the poem, generally when Frost inserts.