He pauses, his hands in his pockets, and looks back and forth between his options. Robert Frost is spot on that we all look back and tell stories about our lives in an attempt to make sense of them.From The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong, a new book by David Orr.Ī young man hiking through a forest is abruptly confronted with a fork in the path. Personally, I find the real meaning of the poem so much more interesting and relevant than the flawed interpretation I had previously. So – maybe many of you knew of this interpretation of the poem and I was not paying attention the day we read this poem in high school or it’s a reflection of my career-preparation major in college (Finance). The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.
He speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The stanza is retrospective as the traveler/poet looks back on his decision – “ages and ages hence” – and comments how we create a life through the poetic fictions that we create about it to give it, and ourselves, meaning. In the ending stanza he basically says that he thinks in the future he’ll just make up a story about having taken the lesser worn path. What? He says he comes across a fork in the road but both paths looked equally traveled! There appears to be no difference in the paths! They were both “just as fair” and “had worn about the same.” They both were covered with leaves! 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. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. 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,Īnd both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. 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 Yesterday I learned from my daughter that my understanding of this poem is TOTALLY WRONG! Here’s the whole poem, see if you pick up on what it really says: My reasoning was based on its very famous ending line: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.“
Until yesterday, I used to think that the poem was all about individualism: the benefits of thinking differently, being your own person and taking the less traveled path. If you are like me, you probably are totally wrong about its true message. The Road Not Taken may be the most well-known poem in America.
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