The Road Not Taken

Be warned, I am now about to destroy your beliefs about one of the most encouraging poems out there.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is one of the few poems that I love, but not for the reasons everyone does. Oh, it's such and encouraging poem! Be different it says. Take the path less traveled.

Every time I hear people go one about this I laugh on the inside. I typically don't contradict them, as that would be rude, but I've always wanted to burst a few things out.

Now, how about we analyze that poem?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20

Where should we start? How about this line "Though as for that passing there/Had worn them really about the same" Don't you find it interesting that the paths are "worn about the same"? Not really different from each other at all.

The paths were the same and lines 4-10 describe the sameness of the paths. They were barley different at all so it can be hardly said that it was "less traveled."  It just so happened that one less person had taken that path. It's not so much of an encouragement to be different and to make your own way in life, but how people look back on life.

The last stanza is him looking back. Or looking forward at how he will look back. People had a tendency to exaggerate when telling stories, and that's basically what this poem points out. You want to be seem a better person, or be able to blame something for the way things turned out.  Depending on how you understand the "sigh" to sound in line 16, he could even be looking back on his life blaming the path he took for disasters in his life or other misfortunes.

Yes. Not the uplifting poem it has come to be. Basically, I just felt like pointing this out. Take it as you please, of course. I'm just not in a particularly good mood and must rain on the parades of every human out there.

If only my decaf coffee hadn't tasted of burnt popcorn this morning... I'd probably be a cheerier person.