The Road not Taken Jomar L. Linga (formalistic analysis)

In Robert Frost’s poem "The Road Not Taken" his theme is about choices. He had two roads to choose from and wonders what would have happened if he taken the other road. His title reflects this. The first three lines,

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood"


It tells us the narrator must choose between two roads he finds more comfortable. It is a difficult choice to make and is careful consideration to his options. The fact that he is sorry he cannot travel, or choose, both way. After the choice of roads is described and considered,

Frost writes:

"Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back."


This is where the narrator makes his choice. Here, he knows he is sure by that is a choice. He wants to hold on to the other possibility, but knows this cannot be. His choice becomes the road taken. The choice he held on to, then he let go, becomes "The Road Not Taken."


In the last stanza of this poem Frost writes,

"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.


The narrator seems content with his choice yet he tells of it with a sigh: not so much a regretful sigh but a speculative one. He is resolving himself to the fact that even when "ages and ages" pass, he will still wonder what if he had taken the other road. This poem is about choices. But more than that, it is about the choices not made and the idea of wondering about them. The title of this poem "The Road Not taken" gives us insight to and reflects this theme.