Taking a Gander at Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

Everyone is faced with decisions in their life that will set them down a specific path, leaving the other path to never be trodden. There is never a straight path that leaves one with but a sole direction in which to head. Regardless of the original message that Robert Frost had intended to convey, his poem, "The Road Not Taken", has left its readers with many different interpretations. 

The setting is a path in the wood which is diverging into two roads. One path is worn down, while the other one is obviously less trodden, as there is much undergrowth surrounding it. The setting of the poem is the symbolism of the poem, because it communicates the idea and message. Our lives are like roads, with splitting paths representing the different choices that we must make. As we live our lives we travel down the road, rarely going back. Whether we don’t come back because time pushes us forward or because we have no will to, these choices are what mold us into what we desire (or not) to become. Robert Frost depicted the two paths that he had come across as being two separate ways because he understood that he would probably never come back to see what was down the path he did not choose, “Yet knowing how the way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back” (14-15). 

Frost was trying to convey the importance of making the right decision when confronted with such a scenario in life (Wilcox). Both roads might lead to success, if the traveler has the will to make it so, but there is more to be learned and character to be wrought from trying harder to earn that success. Life can not always be measured by monetary success, but instead it should be measured by the growth of personality and purity of intentions.