29/3/2023

Independent Writing

The Road Not Taken

This poem is mainly about the dilemma of a person standing at a road with
diversion.This diversion symbolizes real life situations.It opens with a strong
imagery,because of the diction used to depict two physical roads separating from
each other in “a yellow wood”.It’s a forest that is showing the colors of autumn.
To begin with, the first stanza,is hasty to display the theme of regret by
revealing that the individual is “sorry” before he even decides which road to take.
After that, he expresses that this person is trying to see as far as he can down
each road , to help him decide which one he should choose to take.We people go
through many experiences in our lives, one of them is choosing between two or
more paths.
From line 3-5,the writer is emphasizing that we all try our best to guess what
lays ahead of us in every opportunity that we come across.We like to take our
time in order to make planned decisions so we can justify our choices when the
regret of missing out on the other “road starts to haunt us”.
In line six through eight,the person in the poem finally makes a decision and
chooses the road that he thinks is better for him. Simply because not many
people went through it before.However,he quickly adds that the other road
looked equal when compared it to the one he chose, so it really was not as less
traveled as he thought it would be. “Then took the other ,as just as fair ,and
having perhaps the better claim”.
The important idea in lines 8-10 , is that the character claimed the road he
chose was better because it “wanted wear”, meaning that it was tempting him.He
believes that this is the right choice.This cleary shows the nature of people in
general, and it’s that we will always choose the path that seems attractive and
interesting to us , no matter how dangerous it could be.
 When it comes to the 3rd stanza,Robert mentions that at the moment this
personwas making his decision,both paths were nearly identical. “Oh,I kept the
first for another day!”, that is exactly when this person finalizes his decision of
leaving the other road. “And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had
trodden black”, this shows us that this characteris truly being honest with himself,
as he makes this crucial decision.
In the end of the poem , decides to tell people he chose the road that was “less
traveled by” to come across as a person who took a chance and succeeded in life.
The character is trying to convince himself that sharing his experiences it will
seem that this road “made all the difference”.Actually, life is about the paths you
do chose to walk through , not about “ the road not taken”.

Tasneem Tamer 9A