"The Road Not Taken " by Robert Frost is famous for being misinterpreted. It seems, however, that its fame has failed to reveal its true meaning. If one were to read through the poem only once, it would seem to showcase free will and the beauty in making unique, divergent decisions. When read through again, the facade is lifted and the realism of the poem becomes clear. Frost uses cynical, dramatic irony to convey his opinion that people place too much value on the decisions they make throughout their lives, that they spend too much time worrying about which ones are the right decisions when, in reality, major forks in the road of life are a made up concept used to make life seem more in our control. He also refutes the notion that taking a unique, unchartered path will bring more prosperity to one's life.
The first line sets the stage for the rest of the poem. All that can be pictured at this point is a literal fork in a road somewhere in the woods. Through the rest of the stanza, It is clear that there is also a metaphorical road being referenced, one having to do with the grand decisions people have to make in their lives. In this first stanza, Frost relates to all of his readers by referencing an experience that everyone has had. Arriving at a big fork in the road of life, people think long and hard about which road will be safe, shady, and easy to follow. When you make a big decision, however, you can only see so far into the future to predict the effect it will have on the rest of your life. This is what Frost means when he says, "And looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth. " The "bend in undergrowth " he mentions signifies the limit to what people can anticipate in the future. So far not much has happened, but the second stanza can fix that.
The second stanza has a very abrupt beginning. At the end of the first stanza, the speaker is trying hard to decide if one of the roads would have a positive outcome, but suddenly and without thought, he takes the other road.
