Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

In "The Road Not Taken" Frost is caught between individualism and professionalism, personal aspiration and social obligation. The poem was first published in 1916 in his collection Mountain Interval. Frost was always caught between two worlds-that of being a poet and a teacher. This echoes the conflict he faces between idealization and reality yet again, as he voices in "Birches". In "Birches", he declares how he wanted to rise to heavenly altitudes, when he was struck by world-weariness and when "life seems like a pathless wood". Frost however wants to stay there only for a while. He wants to get back, for, "Earth's the right place for love." He seems to echo that while idealization is good, reality is better. "The Road Not Taken" follows similar lines, when the poet looks at two paths and comprehends that he cannot tread both at the same time. Subsequently, he "took the other, as just as fair". He says that the path "was grassy" and "wanted wear". Therefore, he first considers his social commitment into pruning the students into a better tomorrow. He is initially sorry that he cannot "equally travel both." Nevertheless, he concludes in the second and third stanzas that both the ways may be equally "worn" and veiled by leaves of uncertainty. William H. Pritchard tells us how at the time of his choice, that the two roads were in appearance "really about the same," that they "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black," and that choosing one rather than the other was a matter of impulse, impossible to speak about any more clearly than to say that the road taken had "perhaps the better claim."

Frost finally advises his readers to go the way he did and to traverse the path he did-that made all the difference. That is to equate both the paths; to adopt and adapt both in his life.That is,he takes the middle path. One may live in reality and idealize for the future, for hope makes one live better. Conversely, one may idealize reality so that life emerges more roseate. On the other hand, he may be a poet, and still instruct through his poetry. He may adopt the profession of a teacher, and yet philosophize and morally instruct his students. The sigh' here at the end of the poem is a sigh of satisfaction and not of regret as some critics make it out to be. Else, the poet would never maintain that it "made all the difference." Thereby, Frost lives by his decision and comes across as both-an academician and also a poet. Frost claims that the poem was a jibe at his friend, Edward Thomas he travelled with on the path one day. He faced a huge dilemma as to what path to take even though they were both the same. Though Frost uses this incident as an inspiration, the second and third stanzas of the poem acquire symbolic overtones, and Frost cannot play them down, in spite of himself.

The word "road" not only means 'way', it also means 'journey' or 'a stage of journey'. Here 'road' does not signify any ordinary road, but functions a metaphor of a vital decision. Frost's poems are distinguished for that particular facet of his-the "deceptive simplicity" of his poems. One cannot simultaneously travel two roads, but one can definitely traverse the middle path. If he had traveled any one of the paths, it would have been something commonplace and it could not be judged as the "one less traveled by". The title of the poem is "The Road Not Taken". Had he traveled any one of the major roads, the title of the poem would have then been "The Road Taken", as the decision has made all the difference to him. He has not specifically trodden any one of the roads: and therefore the title:" The Road Not Taken". The greatest substantiation of this fact is Frost himself :Poet and Teacher.

Robert Frost illustrates that a personal decision does not require crossroads or choices. It cannot be neatly divided into mathematical units or logical alternatives. Some decisions are beyond categorization' .That "has made all the difference."