Robert Frost Essay
By Julia A. Keirns
While reading “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, I knew I had read it before and heard of it many times over the years. In trying to decipher the meanings it could hold, I know that poems are written to be interpreted by the reader, and therefore a poem can have so many possibilities. I read an article titled, “The Most Misread Poem in America,” by David Orr in the Paris Review and it really helped explain it all.
One person might say that this particular writing is about choices we make in life about which path to take and whether we will look back at some point in the future and think that either path would have gotten us to the same place. Some might say that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference in the world and is the better path. Others might say it is literally about being in the woods and trying to decide which path to walk down. I am sure there are many more interpretations of what this poem might mean. I would like to tell you about a friend of mine named Joey.
Everyone in Joey’s class was going to college. Or at least it seemed that way to Joey. He struggled with making a decision on what to do after high school graduation. In the same way as the poem tells, he stood at the fork in the road looking down both paths. One of them led to college, a degree, a job, a wife and a family – and debt. Debt was at the top of his mind. As he looked down the other path, the path unknown looked so much more exciting and promising. Adventure awaited. He could learn more on his own than college could ever teach him. Joey chose the path less traveled. He purchased a backpack and headed to Europe. He literally backpacked his way across Europe. No money, no job, no plan. His parents worried about him daily and we all prayed for his safety. Today Joey is a travel writer and a great inspiration to me. I wanted to take the road less traveled too, so at the age of 55 I began the path to a college degree. I will change the path I am currently on of getting up and going to work for someone else every day and I will become the best writer I can become and will see where this new path will take me.
David Orr states in his article, “the poem both is and isn’t about individualism, and it both is and isn’t about rationalization.” It is simply a poem about the necessity of choosing (Orr, 2017). It could simply mean that someone was literally hiking in the woods one day and came across a fork in the path. As a hiker myself, I know that a choice must be made. I also know that the chances of coming back to that exact spot at some point in the future and choosing the other path is slim. We like to hike on weekends, but we like to go to different places each time. Who knows what you will miss by not taking a certain path, but who knows what you will see by choosing the path you do?
As a writer I know that not everything I write is literal. Sometimes a thought pops into my brain and forces me to write it down. It might have absolutely no meaning at all in my life, but at the same time desires to be read by someone. So, what exactly was Robert Frost trying to say through this poem? Only he knows for sure. All we can do is read it and interpret it according to our own lives.