the mood is going to be a different answer. How do you feel as a reader? Sad? Somber? Hopeful? Anxious? 

As a reader, you are never sure the poem's speaker made the right choice. So that's why the mood is left up to you.

The mood is the emotional atmosphere evoked by the text, whereas the word 'tone' describes the author's attitude toward the subject to topic. 

In "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, the narrator finds himself facing a choice between two paths when the road forks on his journey through woods in autumn.  He must decide which road to take.  The mood at the beginning of the poem reflects the warmth of the "yellow wood" and the traveler's anticipation at having to choose his own path, so the mood feels light-hearted, even anticipatory. 

The tone, however, really focuses more on how Frost feels about the uncertainty of choices.  The narrator of the poem is unsure about choosing the wrong road and missing unknown opportunities.  The fork in the road becomes a metaphor for all choices that people must and how certain choices may affect the outcome of their lives.  As the narrator reflects on having to make a decision, the tone of "The Road Not Taken" becomes serious and contemplative.

”The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost focuses on the idea of having choices in life.  The poem uses a first person narrator who finds himself on  a fall morning in the woods.  The person comes to a fork in the road splitting in two directions.  The narrator examines both roads and has to decide which way to go.

The mood of the poem appears light hearted in the literal meaning; however, in the figurative aspect of the poem, the atmosphere becomes more serious.  Decisions are being made about life altering facets of a person’s life. As the man contemplates his life and the selection that he made, the poem develops a more pensive tone.

As the man looks at the two roads, he tries to see as far as he can until the bushes and other trees conceal the road.  For some reason, he chooses the other path. He first says it was the road less worn but later establishes that they were both about the same.  Both of the paths had leaves that had not been disturbed.  After he makes his decision, he does hope that someday he will return and try the other way.

That is the literal denotation of the poem.  However, as in most of Frost’s poetry, there is a figurative meaning.  The setting of the poem represents a concept dealing with the speaker’s life. The road or the path in the woods symbolizes life and a decision the man must make.  Something is happening that is forcing him to make a choice—a career, an education, a marriage, the military.  Making determinations is not easy. He has to make the decision based on very little information, yet he must consider all aspects of the choice and also the consequences of his resolve.

The narrator hopes that someday he will be to take that other path in life.  Of course, that does not usually happen:

Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back

Naturally, the primary theme of the poem is choices. The speaker makes his selection because it is different from what he had originally planned on accomplishing. This choice is linked to the future and how this will change his life.  The part that is frightening is that the narrator will not know if his decision is appropriate until it is too late.  There is ambivalence in the selection that was made. When the man tells his grandchildren fifty years in the future why he made this selection, he will tell it with a sigh implying some wistfulness about the lost opportunities he missed when he made his decision.

To further understand the poem’s meaning, the reader must examine the title of the poem.  It is not the road less traveled. It does not refer to the path that the narrator chose, but rather the one that he did not select: the road not taken.  

That is the delicious part of Frost’s writing.  Every single word in his poetry has meaning.  Interestingly, this title adds mystery to the poem because of the implication that maybe that was the path that should have been taken.

What is remarkable about Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken" is that the setting he describes in the first three stanzas is not a real place at all but a fairly simple and obvious metaphor. The poet is thinking about a time in his life when he had to make an extremely serious choice about what direction he would take in his life. This may very likely have been a career choice. But he was not literally standing at a crossroads looking down two diverging roads--although he might have been taking a long walk in the nature he loved so well while he was trying to decide on which of two irrevocable life-choices he would make.

The poem owes its strong emotional effect to the fact that Frost invents a very simple and familiar metaphor and then draws the reader inside that metaphor--so that the reader feels he is actually standing in some yellow woods on a cold day in late autumn at a lonely place where two dirt roads diverge in opposite directions. The reader is inside Frost's metaphor. 

It is only in the last stanza that the illusion is dispelled, and the reader realizes it was only a metaphor after all.

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 lines that reads "Somewhere ages and ages hence" is a puzzler. It almost sounds as if the speaker thinks he is immortal and will be able to tell about the incident for hundreds and hundreds of years. Another rather uncanny possible interpretation is that the speaker knows he is immortal because he is already dead! The reader has been listening to the words of a dead man.

A poem does not necessarily have to have a moral (like Rudyard Kipling's "If"). A poem has to produce an emotional effect. And Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" certainly does that.

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", written in 1920, deals with the choices that people have to make in life. Unfortunately, in some situations, we are faced with choices that are mutually excluding: choosing one will probably exclude the possibility of choosing the other.

In the poem, Frost tells us that both paths appear to be about the same. We hear that both were "worn...really about the same" and that both paths "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." Frost's use of the words "the same" and "equally" suggests that these two paths appear to be the same. Ultimately, though, the narrator claims that he took "the one less traveled by" and this choice "has made all the difference."

So, too, in life we are frequently faced with choosing between two options and it is difficult to tell what the results will be when either option appears to be able to yield the same result. Hopefully, like Frost's narrator, we will choose the option that makes "all the difference."

Tone depends on context. Frost wrote this poem in 1915 in England to poke fun at the indecisiveness of his friend and walking companion Edward Thomas. The original tone of the poem was humorous and light-hearted.

However, once a work of literature is sent forth into the world, it no longer belongs to the artist. Readers impose their own meanings and interpretations. From early on, readers have heard in this poem a tone of high seriousness,. It has been widely understood as a poem about being true to oneself, even if that means becoming a nonconformist. It has been read as an earnest poem about being willing to follow one's own path in life.

The words of the poem lend themselves to this kind of contemplative reading. The speaker comes to a fork in his path during a walk in the woods. He has to decide which way to go and spends some time thoughtfully pondering his choice. Choosing one fork rather than another causes him to muse on the impact that small decisions can have on a life and his contentment at having taken the less conformist path.

The poem is an example of how the accepted meaning and tone of a work can change from a writer's intent once it falls into the hands of readers.

Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” discusses the choices that a person may face in his life.  Frost was once quoted, “No matter which road you take, you’ll always sigh, and wish you’d taken another way.” The poem has a literal and a figurative meaning. Its tone is therefore reflective and pensive.

The tone of the poem is serious and does not necessarily have an optimistic outlook. On the other hand, the poem is not about good and evil. It is about selecting the right approach to life through making decisions. The speaker in the poem must make a selection with little to help him make the decision. Both choices are similar. 

The speaker's attitude toward his decision is positive until the end of the poem when he looks back many years later; then, he thinks about the other possibility that he left behind. He relates the story of his choice with a sign indicating that he wishes that he could have at least tried the other way.

Unfortunately, life does not work that way. The greatest difficulty for the speaker is that he will not know the success of his choice until later on down the path of life when it may be too late to make any changes.  

Often, the reader fails to gain significance of the title.  It is not the road that made all the difference that the title emphasizes, but rather the road that the speaker did not choose.  This alters the meaning of the poem.

The poem’s figurative meaning appears simplistic: the speaker has a decision to make—marriage, career, college, money—and he has been given two choices.  The choices are similar in their ultimate return.  He wishes that he could take both selections, but that is not possible. Each of the alternatives brings a set of events and circumstances that will take the person’s life in a different direction.

The speaker hopes that he might get the chance to look again at the other option; however, that seldom happens in the reality of life. When the speaker thinks about his choice years later, he does it with an inkling of regret.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And I, I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This poem typifies Frost’s approach to poetry.  He does not give answers to his puzzles. It is for each reader to come to his own conclusion.  Frost felt that poetry should simply “be.” Each person who reads the poem brings his own meaning to the poem. 

In "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost looks at the difficulties involved in making a decision that will affect the rest of one's life. 

The speaker begins by simply looking at the two roads and bemoaning the fact that he has to make a choice,

"and sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could"

As we can see, the speaker is not at all certain about what he wants to do. As in real life, his decision is hard because he has no way of knowing the outcome of either possible choice he is considering. 

The speaker's uncertainty continues through the first three stanzas of the poem, expressed with words like "perhaps" and "doubted."

In the fourth and final stanza, the speaker says:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence

The poet is imagining how he might feel about his decision in the future, something we often try to do when weighing competing choices. How will I feel if I make choice A? What if I make choice B?

The key word in the excerpt above is, of course, "sigh." Why would the poet sigh? Most likely he is imagining that in the future, when he thinks about the decision he is about to make, he will still feel unsure. Did he make the right decision? In this case, it is possible  that time will not tell. He will just have to live with his decision regardless of the outcome. 

As the speaker considers the two roads in front of him in "The Road Not Taken," he chooses one "because it [i]s grassy and want[s] wear." Though he initially believes that this is the less-traveled path, as evidenced by the grass that grows there which has not been trampled down, in the next two lines he comments that both paths have been "worn really about the same." This reality is important to the overall meaning of the poem; the speaker wants to believe that he is taking the less-traveled path, even when evidence points to the contrary.

The second reason the speaker chooses this path is because he believes that it might lead to "the better claim." The speaker therefore believes that this path might lead to a destination that is more valuable or worthwhile. Yet even this is questionable as he makes his decision, which is noted by the modifier "perhaps." He can't be certain that the path he chooses to take holds any particular value over his other choice, especially when they appear to be more or less equal.

It's important to consider the ending of the poem as you analyze the speaker's words about his choice. He imagines that in his old age, he will reflect upon this decision with a sense of certainty that choosing the path "less traveled by" has "made all the difference" in his life. Yet the details of the choice indicate that there is no sense of certainty that he actually chooses the less-traveled path at all, and there is an awareness that either path would have rendered the speaker's life the same.

Because the "Two roads" in this poem have both literal and figurative meaning (the speaker does seem to be standing at a very real, literal fork in the road, but the fork also represents something figurative: a choice to be made in the life of the speaker) the roads can also be interpreted as symbols.

A metaphor often has only has figurative meaning, but this speaker describes both the physical appearance of the woods in which the roads are located as well as of the two roads themselves: the wood is "yellow," probably because it is fall, and the roads are "worn [...] about the same"; both "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black."  In this symbol, then, about the same number of people have taken each road (literal) and made each choice (figurative).  The speaker cannot see where either road eventually leads (literal), just as we cannot know all of the future outcomes of the decisions we make in the present (figurative).  He only knows that, once he chooses a path (both literally and figuratively), he will probably never have the opportunity to see where the other path leads.

Ultimately, however, the speaker plans to tell people that he "took the [road] less traveled," although he has already admitted to us that such a road does not exist.  The second is "just as fair" as the first, just grassier, and they are "worn [...] about the same."  It seems that he wants whomever he tells his story to, "ages and ages" from now to believe that he has made a more unique choice, that he took the path fewer people take and is, thus, braver and stronger than most.  The poem's central symbol, the two roads, illuminate the idea that we want to feel unique, and we want others to see us that way, even when we are not.

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost has become one of the most recognizable poems in American literature.  It is a poem that speaks to choices, and yet there is a tone of remorse.  It is clear that the reader does not pay close attention to the title; it is not the “The Road Less Traveled.” It is the road that was not chosen that the narrator frets about in the poem.

This poem is about actual and figurative roads: the roads we walk and drive on, and the roads we take through life. As the speaker of this poem discusses, for every road that is taken, there is a road that is not taken.  The roads a person takes can make a significant change in a person’s life.  It is human nature to wonder about the road that was not taken. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both

The speaker tells us the woods are yellow, so we can infer that it is autumn. The metaphorical significance is that the woods represent the speaker’s life. In addition, the fork in the road is a metaphor for a choice.  The speaker has come to a point in his life, where he can go no farther without making a decision that takes him down one path and does not allow him to take the other. This is an extended metaphor since the entirety of the poem deals with these choices.

The description of the road is a metaphor for the future.  When the speaker looks down the road but cannot see beyond the undergrowth, the poet is expressing that no one knows what the future will bring.

When he chooses one of the roads, the metaphor extends to the quick decision not really based on anything concrete.  The two roads are basically the same.

When the speaker begins to regret that he cannot take both of the roads, he knows that it is unlikely that he will return this way.  This is a metaphor for a decision that changes everything – once the person has made it he can never go back.

The last verse begins with a repetition of the first line which brings the reader full circle and back to the extended metaphor.  One of the key words here is “sigh.” This is the indication that the speaker’s choice was not as successful as it might have been. 

And then the famous line "and that has made all the difference," solidifies the figurative level of this poem by saying that taking the road that the speaker took, making the choice that he made, has changed his life.

[There are no similes in the poem.]

This line describes the lesser-trodden of the two paths between which the speaker of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" must choose when he reaches a fork in the woods. Specifically, the speaker says that this road might possibly have "the better claim" of the two because "it was grassy and wanted wear." Literally, he is saying that although the two roads looked, for the most part, very similar, what drove him to choose this one over the other was the fact that it was grassier and seemingly had not been used quite as much as the other one. If we say something "wanted wear," we mean it looks as if it hasn't been used enough—this is a colloquialism which really means that something looks as if it could do with being put to some more use. Frost connects these two concepts: if the path had been used more frequently, it would not have been so grassy, because the grass would have been worn down through the passage of people, making it muddier and more compacted with their feet.

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" describes a man walking in the woods in autumn when he comes to a place where the path splits. He must choose which branch of the path to follow, and he stands for a moment considering his options. After looking down both paths as far as he can see, he decides that, of the two branches, one has

perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear[.]

Still, he has to make a decision in order to continue walking, so having no other criteria by which to judge his two options, he takes "the [path] less traveled by."

This deceptively simple poem, "The Road Not Taken," has been subject to many different interpretations. The poem is narrated by a traveler who is walking in the woods. He encounters a fork in the road, and, realizing he cannot go down both paths at once, must choose to walk down one of the two roads. He regrets not being able to experience both paths and stands there for a while trying to decide between them. Peering down the first path, he cannot tell where it leads. 

And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

The traveler decides to take the second path, a path he describes initially as just as attractive and possibly even better than the first because fewer people have used it.

Then took the other, as just as fair, 
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

The traveler then changes his initial statement, however, and admits the two paths are just about the same. 

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

The traveler may have known the paths were the same initially, or perhaps he only sees this retrospectively. He takes the second path and regrets that he probably will never return to take the first path. 

Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

Here, Frost reflects on the continuity of our choices, and how they can lead us to places where we can no longer access the set of choices we once had.

The traveler in the poem projects a vision of himself telling this story long after it happened. He sees himself telling others he took the path fewer people used and that choice made a huge difference for him, even though the two roads were in reality effectively the same. 

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.

Some see these two roads as Frost's way of encouraging nonconformity and bold choices, but others see the metaphor of the two roads completely differently. From the opposing perspective, the traveler did not really choose the road "less traveled by," since both roads appeared equally traveled upon that day. He only presents his choice of the second road as picking the one "less traveled by" later on when he tells this story to others.

The poem does not tell us whether the traveler was happy with his choice of the second road, only that the choice was very significant. The traveler tells this story with a sigh, which seems to indicate he still has a measure of regret over some aspect of his choice between the two roads.

The traveler meets the junction of two roads: one is well-worn, showing many people have taken this road, ostensibly because they believe it is the better one. The other is “wanting wear,” meaning it has not been the choice of most travelers. Both are covered with leaves, but the difference is obvious despite this. At the junction itself, both paths seem to be worn equally. It is only as the traveler looks further down the path that he can tell that there is a difference. His decision rests on which one he should take: the one many people have taken (presumably safely), or the one “less traveled by.” He decides to take the road less traveled. This makes all the difference, he states, presumably in a positive way. Being independent and a trailblazer leads to an unfamiliar avenue, but it can lead to great accomplishment and great reward.

Some of Robert Frost's most popular poems have certain aspects in common, and these similarities contribute to the poems' staying power. Let's look at three of Frost's most widely read poems: "The Road Not Taken," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and "After Apple Picking."

In all three of these poems, the setting places the reader in the midst of nature, and the poem's speaker describes this natural setting in detail. Each of these poems also functions as a metaphor; that is, the central idea or situation can be taken at face value, but is also symbolic of a larger or deeper truth. In "The Road Not Taken", the road in the title refers not only to a physical path in the woods, but also to the speaker's path in life. The speaker takes the "road less travelled by" and "that has made all the difference."

In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the journey through the woods can also be seen as the life journey or life path, and the line "but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep" refers to the many things yet to be accomplished before death.

"After Apple Picking," a slightly less well known poem, has a description of picking and gathering apples in orchard; but many analysts have discussed the symbolic meaning of this poem, and it is widely believed that apple picking is a metaphor for the activity of writing poetry, and is a meditation on Frost's own thoughts about his career, which was still in the somewhat early stages when he wrote this poem.

All three of these poems use a natural setting and activities and situations found in nature to explore larger truths about life, death and work. It is clear that Robert Frost approaches poetry as a way to explore these larger ideas.

The two things being compared in "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost are the two roads that diverge in the wood. The narrator is walking along a path and comes to a place where the roads forks, at a Y-intersection, into the two roads which "diverge." 

The narrator describes the roads as "about the same." As the poem is set in autumn, both roads are covered with freshly fallen leaves. No one has walked on either road recently, since the leaves have not been "trodden black", something that would have been the case had someone walked on them after they had fallen. 

When comparing the second to the first road, the narrator describes it as "just as fair", indicating that both roads seem to have equally appealing scenery. Although the road the narrator chooses is grassier, meaning that fewer people have traveled it and a certain amount of grass has sprung up in the dirt or gravel of the road, the poem emphasizes that the roads are otherwise almost identical in appearance.

The speaker in Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” seems to simultaneously feel a sense of melancholy as well as a sense of excitement concerning the decision to choose the road that “wanted wear” over the road that showed more obvious signs of use. We see in the speaker a person who is acknowledging that the passage of time likely precludes the exploration of both ways, but who still feels that making the right choice will make a great difference in the speaker’s life.

The speaker is melancholic because of the necessity of the choice, as well as the ramifications thereof. The speaker is drawn toward the seemingly less traveled road, but the speaker is also hesitant to leave the first road, as both offer the opportunity for discovery. The speaker states that the speaker “kept the first for another day,” but then admits that it is doubtful that the speaker will ever “come back” to that divergence of roads because of “how way leads on to way.” The speaker is telling us that despite the desire being there to explore both paths, the speaker knows the choice made that day will likely preclude ever returning to take the one not chosen. The finality of the choice, and the loss of the possibilities that the first road may hold, leads the speaker to feel melancholic.

However, the melancholy the speakers feels regarding the loss of some possibilities is balanced by the excitement the speaker feels in choosing the less traveled way. This feeling may be more difficult for some reader to recognize, but we can see it in the description of the second road:

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Here, the speaker is showing the reader the appeal of the second road, that it was grassy and wanted wear. This seems to indicate that the speaker is excited about the choice to not go the obviously well traveled way. This sense is strengthened by the speaker’s final assertion that:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Although the speaker is melancholic that the choice of one road likely means that the speaker will never explore the other, the speaker is also happy about the choice made and the possibilities it will offer.

The title of a poem is often a good indication of where the poet's focus lies. While this poem is, ostensibly, about deciding between two fundamentally very similar paths in life, the significance of the title is to indicate where the speaker's mind wanders to when he contemplates this choice. He does not (and in general, in life, we do not) think too much about the path we have taken: we have walked that path, and we know exactly where it leads. Instead, the poet is thinking about the road which he did not take, because he will always wonder a little about how his life might have been different if he had taken that path. Because there are not any real differences observable between the paths, the speaker takes "the road less traveled by" and feels that this has made "all the difference," but the title betrays the fact that he still contemplates this choice he made, based on very little, and wonders what might have changed in his life if he had chosen the other route.

Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a lighthearted look and revisionism.  The speaker in the poem chooses one path for no real reason, since both of the paths are actually about the same.  Notice in the poem that there is no real difference between the two paths.

The speaker imagines himself in years to come, pretending there was a difference, and telling a yarn or white lie for the sake of entertainment.  He imagines himself making up a story about how he took the less-traveled path and that made all the difference. 

Therefore, since the poem deals with making up a story about the road not taken, it wouldn't make sense to call the poem "The Road Taken." 

In this poem, the speaker experiences an internal conflict concerning which of the two roads he or she should take. The roads are symbolic, meaning that they have both literal and figurative meaning; they are literally there in the woods, but they also stand for something else: any significant choice that a person must make in his or her life.

The speaker examines the first road, looking far down "To where it bent in the undergrowth." Then, he or she inspects the other road, which is "just as fair," but the speaker ultimately decides that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." In other words, about the same number of people have taken each of the two roads—neither one of them is "less traveled." The speaker says that the roads "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black," and so we know that no one has taken either of these roads yet this morning and that they are equal in this way as well. The speaker wishes that it were possible to take both roads, just to see where each one of them leads, but the speaker knows that this just isn't possible. When a person makes one decision, that leads to another, and another, and it rarely happens that we make our way back to try the other option again.

The speaker plans to tell people, sometime in the future, that when faced with two roads, he or she took the one "less traveled"; however, the speaker has already told us that the roads are equally traveled, and one is "just as fair" as the other. This implies that the speaker wants to be thought of as brave and unique, even though, ultimately, there are no real unique choices (at least, in the world of this poem).

In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, the conflict manifests both literally and metaphorically. The narrator describes the conflict he experiences when coming to a fork in the road during his morning wanderings. In the first stanza, the speaker has mixed feelings as to which road to take because they seem so similar. He tries to peer down one as far as he can and then considers the other. He finds them both to be about the same but he has to choose. He decides to take the second path, which on that morning seemed a bit less traveled. The choice of roads is a metaphor for a decision in his life that he is conflicted about He attempts to see into his future as he looks down those roads, but since both choices seem to be about the same, he makes the second one. The author never explains what the specific conflict is but leaves it undefined which ultimately resonates with a wider audience.

Because "The Road Not Taken" is written with the use of a first person narrator, there is often debate regarding who the speaker is; however, it has been noted by Frost biographer Lawrance Thompson that when giving a public reading of these verses, Frost himself would frequently introduce this poem as one based upon his Welsh friend Edward Thomas, an indecisive man who could never decide which path he wished to take when the two men would walk together. In Frost’s words, Thomas was “a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other.”

Yet, the fact that Frost did not always introduce the poem in this manner, nor was he always known for straightforward language, along with his having made a pretense of being a New Englander when, in fact, he was not originally from this area of the United States, raises some doubt in Frost's credibility in his audiences. Certainly, in the third stanza, there is the possibility that the speaker may be a spirit:

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 mention of "ages and ages hence" in the second line suggests an immortality on the part of the speaker; thus, he may be speaking post-mortem, much as Emily Dickinson's speaker does in "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."

At any rate, there is little doubt that Frost has enjoyed creating his verses because his speaker begins his tale with stoic solemnity, but then he exploits his speaker as the image of such an indecisive man that he ridicules this way of thinking. For example, the speaker deliberates over insignificant variations on the two paths; then, when he finally reaches the conclusion that the two roads are essentially alike as they have been worn "really about the same," he allows his penchant for overthinking to run away with himself as he sighs and continues to deliberate over his choice.

This poem is about a turning point, and the choice of season reflects this. The speaker finds himself in a "yellow wood," where we can assume that the leaves on the trees have begun to turn, but have not yet deepened to brown, nor fallen entirely from the trees. The autumnal season is beginning, but it is in its infancy, with the path still "grassy." Although a big change is coming, it has not yet gone beyond the point of no return.

We know that some "leaves," not yet "trodden back" by any passer by during this season, have fallen onto both the paths that confront the speaker. This signifies that, although the decision has not yet been made and the season is not yet fully underway, a commitment has been made. At this juncture, it is too late to turn back, just as it is too late to reattach the leaves to the trees: a path must be chosen.

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is set in autumn in the woods. The speaker comes to a fork in the road:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

Literally speaking, we know that the poem is set in the autumn season as the speaker says "yellow wood." The speaker struggles to make a decision in relation to which road he should take.

Metaphorically speaking, autumn represents maturity and the beginning of old age. So, we could claim that our speaker is soon to be old and that he has come to a point in his life when he has to make an important decision. Such decision will undoubtedly change his life for good. He is aware that once the choice is made, he can no longer go back to the point when he was able to choose between two options. The poem implies that the speaker can never be completely happy because he will always wonder what the other path offered.

This poem does not directly tell us in which season it is based. Rather, we have to look carefully at the content of the poem to pick up the various clues that there are that suggest a season. If you read the poem carefully, you can infer that the season is probably fall. Note how the wood is described as being "yellow" in the first line of the poem. The road is the second stanza is described as being "grassy," which indicates that we are not in the depths of winter. Lastly, and most tellingly, when the speaker is trying to compare the two roads in the third stanza, he finds little difference between them:

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

The existence of fallen leaves is a very strong indication that the poem is set in fall, as the leaves on the trees were changing colour from their standard green to "yellow" and there are leaves on the ground, covering both paths.

In Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” the narrator comes to a fork in the road, and chooses to take a “road less traveled by.” This poem is a metaphor for myriad choices a person might come across in life, and how sometimes, the more unknown, mysterious option is the more appealing one. It is difficult to say how the choice effected the narrator’s life after they made it, though the choice has certainly had a big impact on everything that followed. The poem ends with the line “And that has made all the difference,” meaning that this choice truly was a life altering decision. The narrator was also contemplative about the choice even as they made it, “knowing how way leads to way,” that “I doubted if I should ever come back.”

The narrator suffers no illusions about having one’s cake and eating it too. The narrator’s understanding that they must choose one and only one path, might be the reason they behave in an unexpected manner, by taking the path less traveled. The narrator understands the value of doing things differently, and while they are “sorry I could not travel both” roads, chooses the one less people have taken because the know they might never have another chance.

Whether or not this choice made a positive or negative change in the narrator’s life is somewhat open to interpretation, as the narrator says “I shall be telling this with a sigh,” and sighing can be regretful, or thoughtfully thankful. The poem strikes a more positive, contemplative tone, however, meaning that the narrator likely feels they made the correct choice.

I think one way of interpreting the poem is to say that he took the less traveled road both figuratively and literally.  In life, he chose to do things that other people were not doing.  You can interpret the "difference" he says it has made in his life as either positive or negative, but most people assume it is positive.

We all make certain choices in life.  Some of those choices make life harder, and some make it easier.  For example: You have a choice whether to go to college or start working after high school.  That choice will affect the type of job you can get ,the amount of money you will make during a lifetime, and your lifestyle.  It may even affect the type of woman you marry.  That one choice made "the difference" in what your life was like.  In the poem, the poet has a choice of traveling on two roads.  He took the one that was "grassy and wanted wear" -- but they had both been worn about the same. It would be nice if we could see what going to college and/or starting a job after high school BOTH would do for us, but we can't.  Even the poet says  that "knowing how way leads on to way, i doubted I should ever come back." to travel the other path.  The choice he made, made a difference in his life.  Another choice might be if you want to join a gang or go your own way.  That choice would definitely affect your behavior.  Choices introduce us to people from different areas of life and the world, and our contact with them will affect how we behave towards others.

Lines 1–5: A lone traveler comes to a fork in the road and is sorry that he cannot travel down both paths. He stands in place for a long time, deciding which path to take and looking as far down one path as he can see.

Lines 6–10: The traveler looks down the other road. At first, he thinks it looks grassier and less worn than the first road, but then he realizes that the two roads are more or less the same.

Lines 11–15: Both roads are equally covered in leaves. The traveler decides to save the first road for another day, but knowing how one event can lead to another, he doubts he will ever return to travel the first road.

Lines 16–20: The traveler says that one day in the distant future, he will look back on that pivotal moment with a sigh and remember how he had a choice between two roads and he chose the one less traveled. He believes that he will look back on that decision and realize that it made a profound difference in his life.

Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” can be interpreted on both the literal and metaphorical levels. Analysts have long debated which of those aspects should predominate. In addition, Frost’s writing merits close attention.

The poem begins in a straightforward way, simply stating that there were two roads going in two different directions. In the second line, we are introduced to the first-person speaker, who mentions that they were “sorry” they could not take both of them. We gain a clear impression of the speaker’s indecision, as they describe how they stood at a point in the wood and examine the condition of both roads. The indecisiveness is emphasized by the number of ways that they present it, and the way they waffle in their opinion. They say that one is “just as fair” as the other, and after deciding on the one that showed less “wear,” reverses themselves and says that both had been worn “really about the same” and that “both equally lay in leaves” that no one had stepped on.

The idea that the speaker changes their view of the roads’ equality is important because the speaker finally makes a clear distinction:

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The importance and finality of that difference is further emphasized by the near repetition, in the line just preceding those, of the first line.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

While one can appreciate this poem as a description of a choice to walk down a road, it has potential for broader significance about any important decision that makes “all the difference.” One such decision, for Frost, was becoming a professional poet, which is not a typical occupation.

In terms of formal qualities, the poem has four five-line stanzas, and uses regular ABAAB rhyme scheme in all four, with no repetition among stanzas. The meter is iambic tetrameter.

The poet makes considerable use of assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds. In the first stanza, for example, he often uses O sounds, with several slight variations; these often echo the rhyming words at the lines’ ends. In lines 1 and 2, “roads” has the long O of “both,” and “wood” and “looked” and “could” are matched with “wood,” and “could” appears twice. Numerous other O sounds appear in “sorry,” “not,” “one,” “long,” and “down.” These sounds tend to soften the effect and slow the pace. While subsequent stanzas do not use many of these sounds, when they do, they bring the reader back to that original, questioning set-up. In stanza 3, for example, the last line includes “I doubted if I should ever come….”

The poem begins with the speaker saying that he is in the woods, at a fork in the road: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" (line 1).  He feels regret that he cannot, as just one person, take both roads: "And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler" (2-3).  So, he says that he stood there for a while "And looked down one as far as [he] could / To where it bent in the undergrowth" (4-5).  He followed the first road with his eyes as far as he could until he bent away into the forest.

Next, he looked at the other road, saying, "Then took the other, as just as fair" (6).  The second road is just as fair, just as pretty as the first, though it might, perhaps, be somewhat more desirable a path ("having perhaps the better claim" (7)) "Because it was grassy and wanted wear" (8).  In other words, the second road is grassier than the first.  However, he says, "Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (9-10).  This means that about the same number of people seem to have taken each road; they are each worn about the same amount (by the passing of feet) as the other.

And on this particular morning of his travels, the two roads "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (11-12).  No one had yet taken one of these roads today, and the leaves that cover them are untouched by anyone else's feet.  The speaker decides to take the second, grassier road, saying, "Oh, I kept the first for another day!" (13).  And he knows that he'll probably never get a chance to come back and try the first road: "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back" (14-15).  One road will lead to another, will lead to another, and he'll probably never be at this same fork in the road again.

Finally, he considers what he will say, many years from now when he tells this story: "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence" (16-17).  He plans to say that "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference" (18-20).  In other words, he will tell people that, when he came to a fork in the road, he took the road that fewer people had taken.  However, we know that this will be a lie because he has already said that about the same number of people have taken each road and that they lay "equally" that morning.  The speaker, then, will lie and tell people that taking the road less traveled has made a big difference in his life, that it has impacted his life in some significant way, but this is not true because there is no road less traveled.

In the poem, the roads are symbolic of any decision that a person might make.  We often have choices, and we like to believe that those choices are unique and that they make a big difference in our lives.  However, this poem implies that such a belief is really only a fantasy, that there are no unique decisions because they've all been taken about the same number of times by others who came before us on these "roads."

First five lines:  The narrator comes to a split in the road and wishes he could take both.  He knows he can't and he looks down one road.  Some commentators think the part about the bend in the undergrowth is supposed to make the road sound scary.

Next five lines: The he looks at the other road and thought it was nicer because it was grassier and not as worn down.  But then realized the other one was about the same.  He seems to be saying that everything he thinks about the two roads is really illusion and they're both the same.

Next five lines: Continues the contradiction from the last stanza.  Then decides he'll take the other road some other day but also thinks he'll never come back.

Last five lines: He says that someday he'll look back and he'll say that taking the less-used road has made all the difference.

Overall, seems like he's saying it's all in his head.  The roads are the same but he will convince himself that they were different and that the difference was important.

In "The Road Not Taken", the narrator is walking in the forest in late fall and comes to a fork in the road. 

Both of the two branches of the road appear superficially similar. There are no signposts to distinguish them. They are both dirt roads covered with recently fallen leaves leading through the woods, and both are infrequently traveled. Both roads are surrounded by thick undergrowth and have not been traveled that day, as the leaves are unbroken and still yellow, rather than bruised and blackened by feet or hooves.

The main difference between the two roads is that one of the two seems slightly overgrown with grass, a sign that it generally was less used, although the distinction is fairly slight, as Frost indicates in the lines:

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

The narrator explains that he wanted to take both paths, but time would not allow him to do this. Both paths were equally worn-

Had worn them really about the same,

The paths also appeared similar in that they had an equal covering of leaf-litter-

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black

The differences between the paths were, therefore, slight. However, the narrator took the path which appeared to have been less used: perhaps in a bid to experience events that fewer people who took the other path did-

having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

The poet's final choice affects the rest of his life though, as a reader, we are not sure whether he regards the decision as a positive or negative one-

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” the narrator encounters a decision, which becomes metaphorical as the poem progresses.

As the traveler makes his way through the woods on an autumn day, he encounters a fork in the road. Knowing he will not be returning that way in the near future, he is faced with the decision of which road to take. As he examines the two roads; the allure of the second one appeals to him.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

On that particular morning, no one traveled on either path so his decision was not influenced by anyone else.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

Robert Frost explains encountering that fork in the road, and deciding to take the road “less traveled by” is influential to the traveler’s future.

This is a poem of quiet reflection as the narrator recalls a time in his life when he had to choose one path over another. The paths are metaphors for different directions to take in living his life. One path appears, at first, to be more worn than the other; more people seem to have chosen this path. The narrator rejects this path in favor of the other one that "wanted wear." He chose one direction in life over another option.

The narrator remembers that at the time of choosing, he wished he could take both paths and told himself that he would save the other "for another day." Even then, however, the narrator knew in his heart that he would most likely never be able to go back and choose a different way.

The overall tone of the poem is one of regret. The narrator, having made his choice, is still remembering the choice he did not make. He believes that at some time far in the future, he will still be thinking of his two possible paths "with a sigh." He does not anticipate being any less conflicted then or any more satisfied with his choice. He realizes that his choice will have made "all the difference" in his life, but he is presently uncertain about what the difference will turn out to be.

The tone of attitude of the poem changes as the traveller considers his choice of roads. The first attitude is reveals the speaker to be somewhat indecisive. He comes across a fork in the road and wishes to “travel both” but then decides that would be impractical. So, he selects “the one less traveled by...  '" This suggests a feeling of independence and adventure. However, he quickly questions his own description. “Though as for that the passing there/ Had worn them really about the same.” He still decides to take the other route on another day. Then he says he will will be “telling this with a sigh,” which seems to imply a tone of regret. But by the end of the poem, the tone turns to a feeling of inevitability and acceptance. He writes:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The speaker has finally reconciled the fact that he made a choice and that choice was important and simply leaves it at that. Many people think that Frost was explaining his choice to become a poet in this poem. However,several times, Frost himself said the poem was about his friend, fellow poet Edward Thomas who was known for his indecisiveness and habit of "habit of dwelling on the irrevocability of

decisions". If so, then Thomas' habit has been immortalized by Frost and we will be telling of his experience “with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and ages hence” .

While both similes and metaphors are types of figurative language, which ultimately entail the comparison of one thing to another thing for the purposes of illumination, the two devices are not identical or interchangeable. A simile compares something to another thing without suggesting that it is that thing: for example, "The road writhed through the valley like a snake." A metaphor, on the other hand, does not overtly compare two things, but describes something as if it is something else. In this poem, the life of the speaker is imagined as a journey or road; the speaker is approaching a fork in the road, which represents a point in life at which the speaker is forced to decide between two options.

In the case of this poem, the speaker takes "the road less travelled by," which here represents a path less usually taken in life. The speaker feels that it has "made all the difference" to his life that he chose a more uncommon route.

I think that you hit on a strong point in the poem.  If I may offer one note of clarification, it would be that the poem is rooted in comparative language.  I believe that it is a metaphor being used, and not a simile.  The metaphor used in the poem is the divergent road, and the idea that the speaker must choose one of the two paths.  The metaphor of the fork in the road is a compelling one because it highlights the power and the agony of choice.  The speaker is poised between two equally desirable, but ultimately incompatible courses of action and a choice must be made.  There is little negotiation in this paradigm, and the metaphor of the fork in the road highlights this.  The metaphor compares the two paths to the many different chocies one faces in life.  The paths chosen in both the speaker's predicaments, and in our own, "make all the difference" in identity formation.  The metaphor hopes to highlight this.

When you say that the author's purpose is confused in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", in a sense you are confusing three different issues. The first is whether Frost himself was confused in some way, the second is whether you are confused by the poem, and the third is whether the text of the poem contains lines that its intended audience would find confusing.

As to what was going on in Frost's mind as he wrote, or what his intentions were in writing, those are actually not a very important part of the reading experience of poetry, and also, unless we were capable of telepathy (which we are not) ultimately undecidable.

As for your confusion, part of it may be due to seeking a singular "purpose" in a poem. Poems are like songs in that they are intended to provide aesthetic pleasure, and perhaps to stimulate reflection, not to make an argument or convince you of anything. The basic theme of the poem is presented quite clearly.

Frost's poem describes the experience of a narrator having to make a choice. He is hiking or riding in the woods and has a choice of two paths. He can only follow one of them. He chooses the more desolate of the two. He reflects on the fact that he could return at some other time and explore the path he did not choose, but predicts that he will not do so.

On a metaphorical level, this addresses how we all make choices in our lives, and the choice to do one thing means choosing not to do something else. 

There is a special "universal" feeling about this poem that many poems reach for but do not quite achieve. As such, the poem itself stands as a metaphor for life. The author and audience, while subject to much interpretation, can certainly be viewed as one universal person speaking on behalf and to all other human beings. This is our situation. This is our road, our life. Some will choose to go the easy way, others will take a road less traveled. In describing it, it can sound trite. But, because it is done so artfully, Frost manages to risk sentimentality, to risk being trite, and emerges successfully with an iconic poem.

There are at least three possibilities as to who the speaker is in the poem.

Because the speaker always says "I," many people have believed that the speaker in the poem is Robert Frost himself.  However, the poet himself often said that the poem was about a friend of his named Edward Thomas who thought a lot about how our decisions cannot be taken back and about how much those decisions impact our lives.  Finally, you can simply say that the narrator is no one in particular -- just a random human being.  I lean towards this idea because the ideas of the poem are universal -- they don't depend on who the speaker is.

As to audience, I think it is just a person thinking in his or her own mind.  I do not think the speaker is addressing any other person.  After all, the whole poem goes on in the speaker's head at that crossroad.

 “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost must be read on a literal and figurative level.  The poem appears deceptively simple. The theme of the poem is choice and its inevitability.  The choice must be based on faith because until the person experiences his decision he will not know if it was the right one.

The title of the poem is “tricky.”  The poem is often read as an optimistic view of life’s decisions.  If that were true, the title of the poem should be “The Road That Was Taken.”  That is not the focus of the poem. It is the road that was not chosen that is emphasized. 

Literal

A man is in the woods in the fall of the year.  A crossroads stands before him.  He is sad that he cannot go down both roads.  He stands for a long time looking down one of the roads until the foliage interferes with his view.  For some reason, he chooses the other road.  Initially, he says that the other road had been less travel and was the better choice.

Eventually, he admits that both roads were about the same. His commitment to go the other way forces him to travel down that road.  He wishes that he could come back some day and travel down the other way; however, he knows that this is doubtful.    

His final thought is that someday he would be thinking about his decision;  and he would tell the story of the two roads.  He will tell the story with a twinge of regret…because this road made all the difference in his life.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Figurative

A person is standing at the crossroads of his life.  He has to make a decision between two things which will impact his life. Marriage, college, work, travel---he must decide which route to take in this important decision.

He ponders both choices for a long time.  All at once, he makes his decision.  The other path looked just the same.  For some unknown reason, he makes his selection. He never forgets the other choice and hopes that someday he might be able to try it.  In reality, it is doubtful that he will be able to come back to this choice in the future.

When he tells about this important decision sometime in the future, he will recall this time when he chose his life’s path.  He will tell the story with a sign indicating that he indicates with his sigh that he may not have been completely happy with his choice. He made his decision,  and it made all the difference in his life.

Often readers overlook the title of the poem thinking the impetus of the poem is on the road the narrator chose.   However, it is the road that he did not take that also made the difference in the speaker’s life.  His desire to know what would have happened if he had chosen the over road makes the real difference in his life. 

It is interesting that the speaker, undoubtedly Frost himself, says that he shall be repeating his story "somewhere ages and ages hence." Tha word "ages" suggests a long period of time, and "ages and ages" suggests suggests more than one lifetime. Frost seems to have either believed in personal immortality or else, like Shakespeare, he believe that his poem would be read by people who had not yet been born. In fact, he was telling the literal truth, because "The Road Not Taken," as well as many of Frost's other poems, are currently being read and discussed by people who were not born when he wrote them, and whose parents were not even born when he wrote them. He acknowledged in a letter written to a young girl in 1927 that the poem was about his own personal decision to choose the spartan lifestyle he did. He said in his letter that the "sigh" was not terribly serious becausse he did not have serious regrets about the choice he made. Much of Frost's poetry might be classified under the title of "The Road Taken," which led to a life of simplicity but ultimately to recognition as America's greatest poet.

The poem "The Road Not Taken" is about a speaker who comes to a place where two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and he contemplates what road he should take. Symbolically speaking, this poem talks about the time when we find ourselves at a crossroads and when we must make an important choice which will irrevocably alter our lives. That choice could be related to anything, such as the college we want to go to, or the job we want to accept, or the person we want to be with. Our speaker attempts to look down one road so that he could potentially guess what that road would bring to him if he were to take it:

Long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth...

However, he realizes that we cannot know what awaits us in the future. The poem stresses how we cannot make two choices simultaneously. We must make one choice, which, in consequence, will shape us. And once we do it, we cannot go back to the time when we had another option in front of us:

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

There are some excellent points raised here about the necessity and inevitiblilty of choice, decision and consequence which exemplify the human journey. However I think there is another angle, which is that there is no 'Road Not Taken'. Both of the paths have been travelled before. Though the narrator chooses the 'less travelled' route, and he contemplates the route taken by others, he is not as radical and independent in his route as he could have been. He is still a follower.

I love this poem. Your question is a really good one.

I would suggest that the speaker finds satisfaction in finding his own way, not in doing what everyone else is doing.

Choices are put before us every day, and we never know what may come of the simplest choice: a turn we take, a person we speak to. Trend setters still exist, and marketing firms are always looking for them to appeal to those who all want to, for instance, dress the same. The trend setter sets the standard, but by the time others catch on, he or she has already moved on, with a desire to be different than the crowd.

I expect the speaker is not interested in following the flock. Perhaps, too, he enjoys the sense of risk-taking in following a path that is not well-used: deciding to do something because it IS different. Perhaps it is the excitement that comes with a new adventure. Explorers were these kinds of people.

I believe the person speaking in the poem wants to do things his way, and that is a different way. Of course, he realizes later that his perception wasn't quite accurate, but even though others had followed the same path in equal numbers to the first path, HE made HIS choice on his terms, and perhaps that was unique in itself, as unique as the speaker himself is.

As this poem is frequently misinterpreted (as one path being less traveled choose that one), I'm glad that other posters have recognized that neither is significantly different in terms of travel. This poem is about making choices and making those choices, regardless of which path down which they lead, work for our lives.

Although we are presented with the tantalising prospect that one path is less travelled than the other, as other editors have noted, the speaker later on contradicts this idea. This perhaps symbolises the state we find ourselves in when we want to be "an individual" and follow our own path - perhaps individualism is harder to attain after all. In a sense, the poem presents us with a dilemma that all of us have had to confront, and how the decision haunts us in our future as we think back about how impossible it often is to make another decision.

In the discussion of the "road not taken," there is also the hint of the obsessive here.  Since Frost wrote his poem as a satire of an indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, who later fretted whether the choice of walking paths that he and Frost had gone down had as much flora as another, there is this suggestion of the "worry-wart" here in the poem.  He sighs as he continues to ponder the choice he has made.

I'm with bmadnick.  "The Road not Taken" is a poem of reality--we must all choose, and there are always consequences both good and bad to our choices.  Notice the name of the poem is not "The Road Less Traveled."  Instead, he titled the poem for the choice he did not make.  Wherever the road he chose took him, he clearly had some regret or wistfulness--or at least nostalgia--regarding the path he did not take.  That's something nearly all of us understand.

I'm not sure we should assume that the sigh is of relief for the path he has taken.  It could just as easily be a sigh of regret that he made a choice he did.  There is certianly no proof in the poem that the path has brought joy.   The path was a choice, just like all the choices we all make everyday.  Every choice we make, especially the big ones, will "make all the difference," good or bad, and we just have to deal with that.  The ambiguity is what makes this poem so great!

This poem deals with the choices we must make in life and the consequences of those choices. When the speaker of the poem comes upon the two different paths in the woods, he must choose one or the other since he can't take both that day. At first, he feels one of the paths hasn't been chosen as often as the other, so he decides to choose that one, expressing his belief that he has chosen a different path in life for himself, one that would represent his individuality. However, in lines nine through twelve, the speaker contradicts that the path he chose was less travelled, saying the two paths were just about equal. The speaker also realizes that he will probably never go back and follow the other path to see what awaits him there, and this will cause him to "sigh" when he looks back on his choice because he will never know what opportunities he missed by taking one path over the other. But, the speaker has to make a choice, and that choice will determine the course his life takes.

In the poem The Road Not Taken the poet is making an allegorical statement that basically says "there is no need to follow the steps of others". Often in life we are asked over an over to choose from a series of decisions that are based on the decisions that others before us have taken. That, would be the "known path", or the comfortable choice. This is a choice which apparently is taken because it assures one to achieve what others have achieved before.

Yet, isn't that a predictable and potentially boring and "sheep-like" choice? What if one chooses voluntarily to NOT follow the steps of others, and take the chance to build our own journey? What if one's own choices (and not the others') are the correct ones, and the ones who bring us to happiness?

That was what made all the difference for the poet, and this is why this poem is so beautiful.

In the poem "The Road Not Taken," the road represents our life. The author states that the path that we do not select in our life is the one not taken.

Main idea in stanza 1:

The poet was traveling down a road, and he came upon a diversion, resulting in two dissimilar routes; he had to pick one. It turns out in our life that when we have options, we have to take only one, and we take into consideration the advantages and disadvantages and whether it is appropriate for us or not. Then, we make our mind up on what road we ought to take.

Main idea in stanza 2:

The author went on staring at one road for a long while to assess whether it was the suitable route. He later made a decision and set off on one of the paths since he believed that both were similarly good. Similarly, in our life, we settle on one option, although all of them contain the same advantages, demerits, difficulties, and trials that we have to deal with.

Main idea in stanza 3:

The poet asserts that both roads were identical that morning. He resolved to take one path and keep the other one for another time. However, he was aware that he could not change his mind on the option that he had settled on. Likewise, once we decide on something, we ought to keep on moving forward with our decision.

Main idea in stanza 4:

He states that sooner or later, he will narrate how he had arrived at such a moment in life where there were two choices for him, and he chose to travel on that path which had been less traveled. In the same way, when we come of age, we will declare that some time ago, when we were in our youth, we had two choices. The option that we settled on shaped us into what we became.

Robert Frost once wrote:

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

His poetry usually has some of the elements of drama. The reader can feel that there is a conflict involved and will often wonder what the outcome will be. If, as someone has asked, the poem had been titled "The Road Taken" it might not have had dramatic overtones. The reader of "The Road Not Taken" is left wondering where that other road would have led, how the speaker feels about not taking that other road, and even about the roads all of us take and fail to take in life.

The fork the poet comes to on the road of life is what gives the poem drama. He has to stop and make a choice. It is late in the year (i.e. late in his life) and there could be extreme danger involved in choosing the wrong road. What might be the right road for some people might be the wrong road for the poet. "The Road Not Taken" is one of Frost's most famous poems because it deals with a theme that everyone can relate to, although only a poet might be able to see it metaphorically in such an impressive picture.

In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the central theme of the poem is making choices, and how those choices affect the rest of our lives.

The "fork" in the road is introduced in the poem's first line: this also, then, introduces the difficulty—deciding which road to take:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

As the speaker looks down each side of the fork, he is trying to find some indication about which would be the better path to take. But he finds that they are both very similar. Both paths are appealing. He thinks that one is perhaps less worn...though looking closely, they are worn down in much the same way—to the same extent.

The speaker finally decides to choose the road that seems not to have been traveled upon that much—and this is the reason he does take it...because less people have gone this way. He is a non-conformist.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by...

This is symbolic of following one's own bliss, not following the footsteps of many others. The speaker has the desire to be different and have his own unique journey. However, even before he takes a step, the speaker knows two things: while he wants to come back and travel the other path at some time, he expects never will. Second, he anticipates that he will have some regrets...

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence...

In the choosing of the one path, the speaker fate is sealed. His choice will impact the experiences he has for the rest of his life. Of course, this is true for everyone. However, the speaker seems conflicted with regard to the wisdom of his choice, but never gives us any information to know if the move was a good one or not: it was simply the "different" one.

The fork in the path is symbolic of making choices, decisions. The author is pointing out that we are always presented with a wealth of selections and must choose. The fork gives no clue as to which path is the better one to take. Life is that way: there are no answers or guarantees. However, we find that the speaker almost imagines that one path is more worn by the other. Though he admits they are worn very much the same, perhaps he wants to take that path—has made up his mind to do so—and simply needs an excuse to rationalize that selection.

Either road would, in fact, make all the difference. We cannot make choices and not be affected by them in some way.

However, the poem's title draws one back to the fork in the road. The title refers to the path the traveler does not take. This represents the opportunities that may well have been there waiting, that the speaker turned away from simply by taking the other road.

The fork in the path literally represents deciding which way to go. Figuratively, it symbolizes opportunity, the seriousness of the decision, and one's inability to ever make that same choice again. Once one makes a move toward one path or the other, his destiny is solidified by each subsequent step.  

Robert Frost's speaker says that he is sorry that he cannot travel both roads in the poem "The Road Not Taken." The speaker expresses a desire to take both the road he chooses and the road he does not choose. However, because "one traveler" cannot travel two separate roads at the same time, he has to make a decision about which road to take.

The speaker thus wonders about the road not taken—that is, the road he does not choose. He decides to leave that road "for another day," but he knows that, realistically, such a day is unlikely to ever come. The speaker notes that "way leads on to way," meaning that life tends to propel one forward, leading to new paths and new forks in the road. Ultimately, it becomes unfeasible to retrace one's steps back to the original point of decision to find out where the other path would have led.

Although the speaker struggles with his decision, he acknowledges that the roads are "really about the same," and thus it becomes clear that the decision is actually trivial. The speaker imagines that in the future he will look back at this choice, comfortable in the knowledge that he has taken the road "less traveled by." But the speaker's own observations undermine such a conclusion.

The answer to this question is subjective; it is asking for the personal opinion of each reader. Most people give this poem high praise for its ability to show universal truths about choice, benefits, and consequences. I can do that for this poem, but I would like to go a different direction.

Personally, I think this poem is overrated. Frost even thought so himself. He wrote it as a joke to tease his friend Edward Thomas. Thomas was also a poet, and the two men liked to take walks together. Thomas was perpetually indecisive about which road to take at a fork, and he would always say afterward that they should have taken the other road. Frost wrote the poem in response to this as a way of teasing Thomas. Thomas didn't get the joke, and Thomas praised the poem quite highly. It took Frost a series of letters to explain that the poem was never meant to be taken as seriously as Thomas and other critics were taking it. Also, I'm a natural pessimist; therefore, I've never read this poem with a positive outlook. The final stanza tells readers that the narrator took the road less traveled, and that made all the difference. The poem doesn't say that it made a good difference. His choice could have ruined his life or led to some catastrophe. Many readers seem to think that this idea of going his own way to buck the popular choice was a good thing, but I tend to disagree. There is probably a reason why one road is more traveled than the other.

This poem, which beautifully exemplifies all of our doubts and concerns about the choices we have made, and the speculation about where our life might have gone had we made other choices, is at the same time a portrait of New England rural living, the physical basis of all of Frost’s poetic works. The subtle mention of "the yellow wood" gives the reader a hint at the season, like a Haiku poem, and the final line -- "and that made all the difference" -- gives a melancholy, end-of life mood to the piece. While in today’s post-modern world the poem’s simple rhyme scheme and gentle cadence may seem simplistic, even naïve, the power of the imagery is still enhanced by the craft Frost has applied to this simple work. It is a philosophic reminder of the age-old universal admonishment: “Regret for the past is a waste of spirit.”  My "opinion" of the piece is that it is a little gem in the gaudy brooch of American poetry.

I don't believe the poet intended to write an essay about choices but was only thinking about one specific choice of his own which he made a long time ago. I believe he must have been thinking about a very important choice and that it was a career choice. Robert Frost knew he had poetic talent and that he wanted to devote his life to writing poetry. However, he also knew that it is so difficult to make a living writing poetry that it is nearly impossible. Shakespeare himself couldn't do it. He had to get into show biz, and he always felt a little ashamed of the way he made his money. Any kind of creative work is risky. Even if a person has one success, that means nothing. He could still find it hard to make a living for an entire lifetime. And what if his inspiration deserts him? A man who wants to get married and have children is not only risking his own welfare but those of the people he gets involved with. He will find that he has to choose between art and money, or else become a hack, like so many others. Many creative people think they can compromise. They think they will get some kind of tolerable job and then devote as much of their free time as possible to their creative work. It is very difficult. It is like trying to travel down two roads at once. Frost was a hard-headed Yankee. He decided to live a spartan life, not unlike that advocated by Henry David Thoreau in Walden, and devote his full time to his poetry. Eventually Frost became famous, but it took him a long time, and he seems to be wondering in "The Road Not Taken" whether it was worth it. He may have won the battle. He was recognized as America's leading poet. But that doesn't mean what he did would be right for everybody!

In the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, the roads symbolize choice, while the "yellow wood" could refer to a concept like "life." According to this interpretation, the poet is therefore suggesting that life often contains a choice of paths to take.

These choices often create points of no return for the person making them, as indicated by the speaker's words in Stanza 3, indicating that he would probably not return to try the other road. 

The idea that both roads (or choices) appeared both viable and appealing is juxtaposed with the poet being one person. He cannot take both roads at the same time. Also, having made his choice, this would inevitably lead to further choices, creating new roads and new choices. 

The final stanza then symbolically explicates the core idea to the reader: The road that is not taken or the "road less traveled" is the one that is most likely to lead to more adventure and potentially more fulfillment in life. The poet suggest that the less conventional choices in life are therefore the ones to make as much and as often as possible, because it makes "all the difference." (Line 20)

In "The Road Not Taken," Frost's philosophy is that the road he took has made all the difference. He did not take the other road. And while he may be telling his story with a sigh at not having taken the other road, he is satisfied with his choice, claiming it has made all the difference. 

Frost took the road less traveled by. He chose to be a unique individual, a nonconformist. He took the road that was less popular. He chose to strike out on his own. He chose to be separate from the others. His philosophy is that he may have regrets, but all in all, he feels he made the right choice and claims that the road less traveled by has made all the difference in his life. 

"Long [he] stood" at the place where "two roads diverged." And sorry that he could not take both roads, he took the other road.

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;

Then, he took the road less traveled by. And though he shall be telling this with a sigh, he feels confident that he took the road that has made all the difference:

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 speaker is faced with a significant life choice: to take the more conventional (well-traveled) path in life, or to take the one that shows less wear, thus less certainty. He tries to "look" down the road to search for clues to suggest what it might offer, but a distant bend in the road obscures his view. This is a metaphor for life. We all have to make the best decisions we can make with limited information. The future is not certain, and we must take a leap of faith in choosing our direction. This is the conclusion that the speaker ultimately comes to, and he projects himself into the future and thinks optimistically that the less-travelled path will have been more rewarding. He places his faith in a less conventional path and trusts that it will make "all the difference."

The narrator is at a point in his life where he has two choices. He does not want to skip over experiences in his life, since he can't know if they will be once-in-a-lifetime, but he knows that he must make a specific choice. Thinking about both (looking down the path as far as he can), he thinks that they are equally valid, but that one is somewhat more unusual than the other (grassy and wanted wear). His choice is to take the "road less traveled" since it might offer an experience that he cannot duplicate with the road that more people take. In the last stanza, the narrator muses:

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.
(Frost, "The Road Not Taken," bartleby.com)

He foresees that he might regret his decision, but he knows that he has made it to the best of his ability. He makes the choice that is not often made, and knows that his future life will be changed forever ("made all the difference") because of that choice. It's not that the choice is positive or negative, but that it is one that he will probably not get to repeat, and so it affects everything that will happen to him in the future.

The roads look somewhat different from one another: when the traveler tries to look down the first one, he sees that it "ben[ds] in the undergrowth" (or curves away into the brush up ahead); the second is "grassy" and, for this reason, might have "the better claim" on his attentions (line 5, 8, 7). Ultimately, however, though the paths look somewhat different in appearance, "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (9-10).

In other words, about the same number of people have traveled each road—they are worn about the same because about the same number of feet of walked each one—and, in the end, the second road is "just as fair" as the first one (6). Furthermore, no one appears to have walked on either one of them on this particular morning. The speaker says that both roads "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (11-12). He has already described the wood as "yellow," and so it is, perhaps the season of Fall. Yellow leaves have fallen onto both roads, and they must still be yellow rather than brown or black, which they would be if someone had trodden on them with muddied boots.

However, because they are still fresh and unmarred by any footsteps, the speaker can say that no one has taken either path yet this morning. They are, with the exception of their relative appearances, almost completely the same; neither one of them has been more or less traveled than the other.

I see the dilemma as it is presented in these lines:

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

You can only live one life. You make some choices early on, and you walk your particular path: "Way lead on to way." This thing leads to that thing, and before you know it, you're seventy. By then, you look back on your life and know there just isn't time left to choose another path and to experience where the road not take would have led you. That's life.

Poetry is all about interpretation. Lots of times we look for a specific interpretation as teachers, but part of reading well is reading in between the lines and digging out a personal meaning for yourself.

The dilemma as I see it (a mere interpreter) is the problem of choice. We make choices every day. Sometimes we get tired of these decisions and stress or struggle over actually getting a decision made. Sometimes the decisions are so insignificant that the choice doesn't even matter. Other times the decision "makes all the difference."

Frost's closing words demonstrate that he chose the road less traveled and that the result of that choice has made a difference. Lots of people do like to use those last few words to teach the concepts that sometimes choosing the hard working route in life earns you a great difference, a significant difference. Frost doesn't specify what the difference is, just that it exists.

The dilemma was simple: making a choice. The result of the dilemma is a much more complex unknown, what was that difference? I guess that's why he left it unknown, we should each seek to discover that for ourselves.

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is a poem about decision-making, and the richness of the poem lies in the way Frost considers the topic from two different angles. The first and most obvious angle is that of the speaker, a man walking through the woods who comes upon a fork in the road. Faced with this decision, the speaker hesitates, peering down each path as far as he can, trying to glean information. Because of his desire to travel both roads and his knowledge that he is unlikely to return to this point, he feels that his decision is of great importance. In the final stanza, he goes so far as to imagine that in the future, he will look back and tell the story “with a sigh,” secure in the knowledge that his choice was correct and that it “made all the difference” in his life. This imagined act of future justification reflects the speaker’s anxiety about choosing correctly, indicating that he will create a narrative to assuage his own fears about having chosen unwisely at this critical juncture. From this angle, the decision is indeed important.

But the poem offers another angle on the topic, one that undermines the first by showing that the speaker’s decision is not nearly as weighty as he thinks it is. As the speaker examines the two roads, he acknowledges that they are effectively identical. Both are covered in leaves, and both have been equally worn by prior travelers. In light of the similarity of the two roads, the speaker’s imagined act of justification—that he "took the [road] less traveled by”—is shown to be fundamentally false, as is his assertion that his decision “made all the difference.” Indeed, if the poem has a lesson, it is that people tend to think their decisions are weightier than they truly are, even to the point of defending those decisions on false grounds.

The speaker of the poem is initially "sorry [he] could not travel both" roads, probably out of some normal curiosity about where they lead. However, he must admit that the second road is "just as fair" as the first, and that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." In other words, both roads have their advantages, and he cannot see where either one ultimately leads. Further, it seems that about the same number of people have traveled each road, as they are similarly worn by the footsteps of those people. The speaker does make a decision, promising himself that he'll keep "the first [road] for another day," but he knows he will most likely never be back because one road (or decision) often leads to another then another. He resolves his conflict about which road to take by simply choosing one; he picks the grassier, second road. After all, about the same number of people have taken the roads, so one doesn't necessarily seem better than the other. In the end, though, he plans to tell people "ages and ages hence" that when he encountered two roads in the wood, he "took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." However, we know that there is no road less traveled because he's already said that the two roads are worn "about the same." Therefore, it doesn't really matter which road he takes because he plans to tell people that he made a unique decision—that he picked the road fewer people have chosen—and this is simply not true.

Frost's somewhat ambiguous poem, "The Road Not Taken" has long been a source of debate as there are those critics who perceive the poem as an affirmation of the importance of making choices in life while others interpret the poem as a subtle satire on the personality that struggles to make decisions because of the propensity to dwell on the irrevocability of choices. At any rate, the conflict that arises in the speaker is in his remembrance of a road--metaphoric or real--that he did not select, and he rues his choice.

It does not appear from the tone of the last stanza that the speaker has resolved his conflict. For, he states in retrospect that his choice of "the one less traveled by" has "made all the difference."

Earlier in the poem, the speaker indicates his very incapability of making a decision:

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

And, at the end he affirms his inability to live by it as he laments the irreversibility of his choice, indicating that he still is incapable of committing himself to a decision.

People typically interpret the fork in the road in this poem to be symbolic of the choices we make. We may have a few options at each of these moments of decision, but ultimately we cannot really know where each choice would take us, just as the speaker cannot see where the roads lead.

The speaker examines both choices, noting that the second is "just as fair" as the first, and he admits that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." In other words, the two roads are worn pretty equally, implying that approximately the same number of people have taken them: neither one, then, is actually "less traveled." In fact, the speaker also says that "both [roads] that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" (my emphasis). He chooses the second option, knowing that he'll probably never come back to try the first road.

Finally, he claims that he will tell this story in the future, perhaps to his grandchildren, since it will be "ages and ages" from now. He will say that there were

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Thus, he is planning to lie. He will tell people that one of the roads was clearly "less traveled" than the other and that he took that road. We might assume it is because he wants to seem brave, as though he made a difficult and relatively unique choice. However, if you recall, there IS no road less traveled—he described them as equal in many ways—and so we are left to consider the possibility that there are, perhaps, no real unique choices to be made.

Many people interpret this poem to mean that it is possible and good to take the road less traveled. However, it is difficult to find evidence for this interpretation since the speaker so clearly describes the roads as equals. Perhaps this interpretation says more about us, actually confirming the conclusions we might draw from the narrator's desire to lie and make himself sound unique.

In "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, the usual debate centers around the speaker's choice to take the road less traveled. While some think it is best to take the road less traveled "because it was grassy and wanted wear," the speaker tells the story "with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence." The sigh is confusing because it could be a contented sigh, or it could be a sigh of disappointment and regret. 

The speaker offers no clues about the nature of the sigh, so it is ambiguous and open to debate. The name of the piece itself is interesting and may contribute to the argument - it is called "The Road Not Taken," and not "The Road Less Traveled." Robert Frost names the piece after the road he chose not to go down, which makes the speaker seem wistful for a second chance at choosing between roads. Because the poem is open to interpretation, it is relatable to all who are making similar choices, for everyone learns that choosing a specific path will make "all the difference."

Another topic sometimes debated is the question of whether the speaker has actually taken the road less traveled. The speaker seems to acknowledge at one point that "both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." Does the speaker take the road less traveled—or just the one that initially seemed that way?

There is considerable question as to whom the "I" refers.  Some argue that the speaker is Frost's walking partner, who always wondered about taking another path.  Some suggest it is Frost, itself. The universal view of the "I" is that it is applicable to everyone who is confronted with some type of choice between equally desireable, yet ultimately incompatible courses of action. The most compelling evidence might be Frost's own description

One stanza of "The Road Not Taken" was written while I was sitting on a sofa in the middle of England: Was found three or four years later, and I couldn't bear not to finish it. I wasn't thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way.(Frost)

The idea behind the road being "grassy and wanted wear," implies the notion of exploration.  The speaker veers from taking the road that others have taken, that is more commonly accepted.  Rather, the speaker takes the one that has not been popular, not been widely accepted.  In honoring this notion of the good that others have not, the speaker points out that the look of this particular road was one filled with grass, implying few have walked or tread upon it.  This idea is enhanced with the personification of the road as one that "wanted wear," which renders a picture of a choice beckoning and calling out to the speaker.  In describing the road in this manner, it is almost as if the speaker was compelled to take the path that others discaded, one that called out to him, which might have contributed to "making all the difference."

First of all, I found it interesting that Robert Frost said so much in such a relatively short poem - in only 20 lines - compared to some other works of his. The poem deals with the paths, the roads, we take in life. The poem is all about choices and how one road leads to one future, while another road can lead to a different future with different people in our circle of influence.

I find the opening line of the poem memorable:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

I find that this unique opening line foreshadows Frost's thoughts for the rest of the poem. Immediately, this opening line compels me to read on to find out what is intriguing about these two roads.

The most memorable line to me, however, is the line:

I took the one less traveled by,

To me, Robert Frost is talking about taking up new challenges in life - going the route people may not typically take. This line alludes to trying new things and meeting new challenges head on. He says that taking the road less traveled has made "all the difference"; he does not say whether the difference has been better or worse for him in his life.

The fact is, he took a chance, maybe even a calculated risk, to choose the road less traveled, and can hold his head high in this decision. He did not waver at the junction of the two roads that diverged. He made a choice, and moved forward with his decision, and lived his life, instead of fearfully failing to take the initiative.

I think this is the most memorable thing I take away from this poem. Frost indicates that he is sorry he could not travel both roads in his life. He understands that we must make hard decisions in life and oftentimes choose one path over another - knowing we can never return to check out the other path. This is where we must have courage and stick to our beliefs, goals, convictions, and plans.

Looking at the second stanza, it is clear that although the speaker intially at least feels one is "less travelled" than the other, he swiftly acknowledges that actually, there is hardly any difference between these two near-identical paths. Note how he describes them and the words he uses in his description:

Then took the other, 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...

The next stanza begins by describing how both paths "equally lay." The initial identification of the speaker that one path is somehow "less travelled" than the other perhaps reflects the way that people, when making important life choices, initially might judge that one path or decision is more favourable than the other. However, this poem points towards the truth that normally this is something that is a figment of people's imagination: there are only different decisions. The different way we might look upon them depends entirely on ourselves, and often, when people try to deliberate between two choices, and try to find certain dis/advantages between them, they are forced to concede that there is no obvious difference and they just have to make a choice.

Firstly, it's important to understand that "the road" in "The Road Not Taken" is metaphorical—not exactly a literal road, though the poem may have been inspired by an actual walk through a forest. The road that the narrator has taken is "the one less traveled by." The narrator describes it in relation to the first as follows:

And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
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,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!

The first path seems attractive, due to how it bends "in the undergrowth," making it shadier and more mysterious. However, the narrator takes the other, which is still "grassy and wanted wear," indicating that few have trodden on this path. This description of the second road is the reason why many people read the Frost poem as championing non-conformity. I would say that they are not exactly wrong. It seems that the narrator chooses the second path because it seems to offer something new. However, on a closer look, he sees that they are worn "about the same" and both are covered in freshly fallen leaves. He imagines that he will have a chance to travel on the first path on another day, but there is never time for that opportunity.

The poem is a meditation on choices and how we cannot enjoy all of the opportunities that are offered to us in life. The choice of one thing guarantees the loss of another.

I think that the speaker and the natural setting in the poem are very similar to one another.  The first, and in my mind most pressing similarity, is that both are filled with complexity and a lack of simplicity.  Appearances can deceive, and they certainly do in this instance.  The speaker appears to be composed about the basics that two roads separated and he selected one of them to take.  In the same way, the natural setting looks, from outward appearances, beautiful and, in a sense, easy to assess.  Yet, as further reflection indicates, challenges in understanding both emerge.  The speaker comes across as being able to be seen in a variety of ways regarding his choice.  On one hand, there can be a case made that the speaker is content with his choices, and only remarking that there was a point where a critical choice was made.  On the other hand, this very analysis can prove to be a point of melancholic longing for that which was not chosen.  In the end, the speaker appears complex and intricate in the decision made and in one's assessment of him.  The natural setting of the poem is much the same, where the elements featured are not easy to dissect or to fully ascertain.  Similar to the issue of choice, one thinks that they "have it figured out," only to realize that more exists and the only certaintiy is that there is a lack of clarity present.  In both nature and the narrator's need to choose, there is ambiguity and doubt which ends up "making all the difference."

Frost provides the answer to your question about setting in the poem’s opening line: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”  The setting is the woods, in this case with paths strewn with yellow leaves.  When the speaker looks agonizingly at the two paths, telling us he is “sorry [he] could not travel both,” we realize that the woods and, in particular, the roads, are symbols for choices in life.  This should be apparent from the simple fact that we COULD go back and travel a second literal road.  Like choices in life, the roads before the speaker are not clearly visible.  He looks as far as he can see “To where it bent in the undergrowth.”  Similarly, when we are planning choices in our future, we can only see the start of each possible path and have no way of knowing where it will lead.

The speaker is indecisive and looks to see which path is more worn. That is, he wonders which choice in life more people have taken. He takes the one that he at first thinks is “grassy and wanted wear,” even though he realizes that the passing –the fork in the road—“had worn them really about the same.”  No matter how much he tries to puzzle out his decision, he can’t find a clue to help him make the better choice.

When he says he “kept the first for another day,” he realizes—as we do along with him—that sometimes we can go back in life to a choice we had abandoned.  But it is not likely.  Our speaker goes on to say that “knowing how way leads on to way / I doubted if I should ever come back.”  Once we’ve made some of our choices in life, it is often hard, even impossible, to go back and start over.  As the poem concludes, the speaker is in the future, telling his story “with a sigh.”  We always wonder if we made the right choice.  The famous closing line, stating that the road he did choose “has made all the difference” is ambiguous.  He can’t really know what the other choice would have meant, but he will always wonder.

The narrator takes a long time because he is contemplating which road to take.  That sounds trivial, and it is, IF you only make a surface level reading of the poem.  

If you search for a meaning deeper than a guy choosing which road to walk, then you see the poem as an illustration of choices and decisions people make in all aspects of life. 

The narrator of the poem is comparing the decision of which road to take to other decisions that he has made in life.  The reader is never told about what other specific decisions, but the implication is there.  

"Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back."

The road the speaker is on comes to an intersection in a wood.  He has a choice of two roads to continue on.  One of them goes off until it bends and is lost from sight in the undergrowth.

The author takes the road that, he says, was less traveled by.  But the thing is that there is really not any difference between the two roads.  The author says that one is grassier and less trodden down, but then says the other is just the same.  He says both roads had equally untrodden leaves.

So the difference is all in the speaker's mind.  He says he will look back and say that he took the less traveled road and that that made all the difference.  But we know both roads are really the same as far as he can tell right now.

The physical symbol of the moment of choice is the divergence of the two roads. The speaker is speaking literally about choosing between one of two roads, but the metaphor is that he must choose between one of two "paths" in life. That being said, each road represents a potential choice. 

Some interpret the poem to mean that the speaker is a nonconformist and he chooses the less traveled road. In other words, he chooses the path that most people do not take. However, evidence in the poem shows that he does not knowingly choose a less traveled road. In the second stanza, he notes that "the passing there / Had really worn them about the same." The two roads look equally worn and therefore, equally traveled. So, he is faced with two choices which look the same. He can not know, at this point, which has been less traveled, which is the path of nonconformity. 

He repeats the moment of choice in the last stanza: the divergence of the roads. He says he has taken the "road less traveled by" but he says this with a "sigh" indicating doubt, uncertainty, and maybe even regret. The sigh suggests that he can only hope that he had taken the less traveled road and/or that he regrets not choosing the other path. 

In Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” the two roads that the speaker must choose between are essentially the same. It is only his perspective that creates a difference between them. Having chosen the second road, the speaker explains that in the future, he will look back and say that he chose the road "less traveled by." It seems likely, however, that if he had taken the first road, he would say the same thing.

It is important to note that in the first line of the third stanza, the speaker explains that both roads “equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.” This tells the reader that at that moment, the speaker cannot distinguish any concrete difference between the two paths. However, he explains that he “kept the first for another day!” This line suggests that the speaker takes what he considered to be the second road, with the intention to come back and travel the first path another time.

Overall, the poem implies that no matter which road the speaker picks, he will continue to ponder the decision while justifying his choice as having "made all the difference."

Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” presents a forking road in a forest as a metaphor for the choices one makes in life, but the poem's inspiration was quite literal. The idea behind “The Road Not Taken” originated from long walks through the countryside that Frost frequently took with his friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas. Frost often poked fun at Thomas’s indecision regarding which path to take and his tendency to bemoan that choice later on in their stroll.

When Frost composed the first draft of the poem in 1915, he entitled it “Two Roads” and sent it without context in a letter to Edward Thomas. Frost intended a poetic joke and probably anticipated an ironic or bashful reply from Thomas. However, the joke went over Thomas’s head, and he replied with praise, calling Frost’s poem “staggering.”

In the following exchange of six letters, Robert Frost attempted to slyly hint to Thomas that the poem was about his friend’s indecisive personality, but he was eventually forced to tell him the jest outright. Some critics suggest that Frost was embarrassed at his failure to write a lighthearted lyric poem about his friend. He perhaps took it as an affront to his poetic talent that he couldn’t get his friend to understand his joking tone.

Regardless of the humorous inspiration, “The Road Not Taken” has, somewhat ironically, become one of the most studied and discussed poems in American literature, with many readers interpreting the poem in the same straightforward manner as Thomas.

Scholars have long written that "The Road Not Taken" is purposely ambiguous. It allows the reader to think about their life and the paths they could take, particularly when they are faced with a difficult decision. The speaker experiences the hesitation we all may experience when faced with a complicated decision. They seem to have this hesitation because each path seems mysterious; it is impossible to tell where they will lead, which often happens in life decisions as well. It is also difficult to choose only one path. The roads seem to fork from a single path, so the narrator can choose only one, not both, making this decision seem very permanent.

Most people would make up their mind by doing what the speaker did; looking carefully at their options and rationalizing the decision they end up making. Even though the speaker cannot see where each path ends, he observes the differences between them. One looks more worn down than the other, indicating that others have taken it, but the speaker chooses the path that was apparently taken less often (though he then admits it was really "worn ... about the same").

The speaker also implies that, in the future, he may look back on his decision to walk the path he chose and consider how it changed his life, as many of us might after we make a decision—whether or not we know if it really had any significance.

In Frost's "The Road Not Taken," two clues suggest the season is autumn. First, in the opening line, the speaker mentions a "yellow wood." Then in the second line of stanza three, the speaker states that whichever way he turns, nobody has stepped on the leaves on the ground:

In leaves no step had trodden black

The leaves on the trees seem to have turned yellow, which would happen in the fall, a time we could also expect many leaves to be on the ground. While the imagery is ultimately ambiguous—the leaves might look yellow because of the sun shining on them, and leaves fall on the ground in other seasons than fall—the best surmise is autumn.

If autumn is the season, this suggests a symbolism of time running short, which supports the melancholy theme of the poem. Spring is a time of new birth and new beginnings, but autumn is a season when nature matures and winter, symbolically associated with death, is not far away.

The poem is about making choices. The speaker would like to go down both paths when he gets to a fork in the road, but he knows he has to make a decision because the time is short. He says he will keeps one road for another day, meaning he hopes he can come back and walk on this road, but he also mentions that:

I doubted if I should ever come back.

Autumn, a season of endings, symbolizes the bittersweetness of time's transience. We don't have all the time in the world before death comes: we won't be able to fulfill every dream.

Frost uses a very simple style of presentation for this poem. The language is plain, using words people can easily understand, such as "yellow wood." It's almost as if he is talking to the reader in a conversational way.

The poem is divided into four five-line stanzas and relies on end rhymes. For example, in the first stanza, the simple words "would," "could," and "stood" rhyme, as do "both" and undergrowth."

Because of the simplicity of the poem, devices such as repetitions and exclamation points stand out. The narrator repeats the word "and" three times in the first stanza, accentuating the narrator's indecision as he longs to go down both paths, wishing he could take both, but knowing he has to make a choice.

In the third stanza, the exclamation "oh" and the exclamation mark stop us on the following line:

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

The narrator at this point shows that he also very much wants to go down the road he hasn't picked. He hopes to do so "another day."

The "ands" return in the final stanza, along with a long hyphen mark: the poet ends by saying the road he has taken has made all the difference, but we still feel some of his struggle in making his decision.

The poem has remained popular because of the simplicity of its language and its theme--when we come to crossroads in life, we have to make a decision. For the poet, taking the road less traveled--often interpreted as following the less conventional path in life--made a big difference to him.

New York Times poetry columnist David Orr has called Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" the most misread poem in America. His reasoning is that while most people think that Frost is promoting individualism, he is actually commenting on how people practice self-deception when they seek to "go their own way."

Frost acknowledges in the poem that there were two paths set before him—perhaps he was referring to his potential futures as an Ivy League intellectual or a farmer. Both, he says were "worn really about the same" and "that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." He chose to become a farmer, and that choice brought him what likely would have been a very different life than if he had chosen to remain at Harvard.

It is likely that he questioned his decision at some point in his life. "The Road Not Taken" seems to imply he coped with that doubt by deceiving himself and others, claiming that the road he took was the one "less-traveled by," when really it had been traveled just as much as the one he chose not to take. That self-deception is what "made all the difference."

In “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker stands at a junction of two paths, and he must choose to follow only one of them. From the “yellow wood” in the first stanza and the fallen leaves covering both paths in the third, we can tell this poem is set in autumn in a colorful, northern-forested landscape. From where he stands, the speaker scrutinizes both routes but cannot see far along either one of them. He claims more people have traveled along the first one, although both routes appear to be worn about the same amount. In the end, the speaker decides to take the second path, “the one less traveled by.” We can debate whether he is comfortable with this decision later in life, as he recalls and retells this story. We can also debate whether the path he chose is the same one he refers to in the title; depending upon your interpretation, it could apply to either one.

The poem does not relate to Frost in the sense that it is a first-person narrative about a personal choice that he had to make for himself. Its autobiographical nature is rooted in the fact that Frost wrote it for friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, who was known for his inability to make decisions. Frost essentially wrote the poem to mock his friend who had written "Roads," a similar poem about historical pathways which had been constructed by the Romans in his home country, Wales. Many of these roads were still being used, and Thomas wrote about both the literal and metaphoric significance of these routes.

In her article, "Robert Frost : 'The Road Not Taken,'" Katherine Robinson says the following:

Robert Frost wrote “The Road Not Taken” as a joke for a friend, the poet Edward Thomas. When they went walking together, Thomas was chronically indecisive about which road they ought to take and — in retrospect — often lamented that they should, in fact, have taken the other one. Soon after writing the poem in 1915, Frost griped to Thomas that he had read the poem to an audience of college students and that it had been "taken pretty seriously… despite doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling… Mea culpa.”

She further also states,

shortly after receiving this poem in a letter, Edward Thomas enlisted in the army and was killed in France two months later. 

When Frost sent the poem to Thomas, Thomas initially failed to realize that the poem was (mockingly) about him. Instead, he believed it was a serious reflection on the need for decisive action. (He would not be alone in that assessment.) 

Frost was disappointed that the joke fell flat and wrote back, insisting that the sigh at the end of the poem was “a mock sigh, hypo-critical for the fun of the thing.” The joke rankled; Thomas was hurt by this characterization of what he saw as a personal weakness — his indecisiveness, which partly sprang from his paralyzing depression.

To clarify the point even more, the author also states, in simpler terms, the following detail:

when Frost and Thomas went walking together, Thomas would often choose one fork in the road because he was convinced it would lead them to something, perhaps a patch of rare wild flowers or a particular bird’s nest. When the road failed to yield the hoped-for rarities, Thomas would rue his choice, convinced the other road would have doubtless led to something better. In a letter, Frost goaded Thomas, saying, “No matter which road you take, you’ll always sigh, and wish you’d taken another.” 

Frost, after the poem had been published, was constantly questioned about its cryptic nature and he often commented that the poem was "tricky." This obviously implied the poem should not be taken at face value, as his friend had, unfortunately, done. It has greater meaning and depth.

People have to choose between a number of different paths in their lives. Some people must choose between doing something they love (one path) or doing something that will pay the bills (another path); sometimes those two things do not coincide. Some people must choose whether or not they want to have a family or how big a family to have; financial considerations often play into this decision as well. One might prefer to have a large family (one possible path), but may make the decision to have a smaller family due to financial concerns (another possible path). Further, one might have to make a more general decision, applicable in so many circumstances, about whether to do some unique thing that they really want to do (one path) or do whatever is considered more socially acceptable or responsible (another path). Some must choose whether to break a law they feel is unjust and accept the consequences (one path) or abide by the law they find unjust and deal with their conscience (another path). 

In this poem, the speaker is confronted with two paths that diverge in a forest. The speaker wishes to take both of these paths, although he must inevitably make a choice. Both of these roads are appealing to him but he will probably never return to take both paths. The speaker believes that one road is less traveled than the other, but he also believes that both are worn about the same. This difference in opinion is crucial because in the future the narrator looks back on this event and confesses that the road he took made all the difference. This final switch plays on themes of nostalgia and personal narrative. Ultimately, The Road Not Taken is a poem about memory and how we craft the stories of our lives. Frost argues that people are prone to thinking the choices they made were favorable, and consequently people often give advice based on the choices they made.  

Presumably the speaker of this poem is Robert Frost himself, as he acknowledged in some of his public readings. He is thinking about a career decision he made many years ago. He had to make a choice between seeking a secure profession which would enable him to live in comfort or to devote himself to poetry and live very simply close to nature. Many aspiring artists are confronted with that choice fairly early in life. They don't know whether to trust their instincts and go ahead with the pursuit of their dreams, or whether to play it safe and get a "day job," so to speak. It is hard to do both. Frost seems to have felt it was impossible for him. The two roads went off in different directions, and as he says in the poem::

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood...

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence

In "The Road Not Taken" the poet, the narrator if one assumes the poet speaks of his own experiences, appears to anguish over which path to take when he comes to a fork in the road.

Through his musings, the poet seems to say both that choices such as the path to choose are hugely important as well as to at times seem to refer to the futile nature of attempting to choose a path when the road ahead, the future, is unknown to one at the time.

Ultimately, after musing back and forth about the decision, the narrator appears to decide to take the road less traveled even though he knows he may never pass back this way again. That decision seems to lead to more turmoil as he realizes that he may never know what the other path might have held in store for him.

The poem is about the choices me make which influence who we turn out to be and where we eventually end up.

The first stanza introduces the speaker of the poem. He is a traveler who comes to a spot in the woods where two paths diverge and cannot decide which road he should choose. The stanza implies that the speaker feels dejected because he cannot go down both paths at the same time. He ruminates for a long time about the path he should pick. This dilemma is symbolic. This stanza is not just about a literal fork in the road. Instead, it speaks about a moment in life when we find ourselves at a crossroads, aware that what we decide to do next will have quite an impact on our life afterwards.

In the second stanza, the speaker tells us that he made a choice and picked a road which he thought was better because it seemed "grassy and wanted wear." Symbolically speaking, this suggests that he picks a path which many other people would ignore because it seems more challenging. This may signify that our speaker is an individualist, a leader, not a follower.

However, this claim can be refuted because the speaker tells us, in the third stanza, that both paths "that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black." This means that both roads are equally traveled, so there is no such thing as a road less traveled. The speaker then says that he doubts he will ever return to the path he didn't get to examine:

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

In the last stanza, the speaker imagines being an old man who thinks about that moment in the woods when a choice had to be made, and he says he will speak about that moment "with a sigh." This may mean that he will never be able to forget that there was that other path he did not get to try. And he will bend the truth by saying that he took the road less traveled by, even though it is known that both were equally traveled.

The poem is about the inevitability of making choices and what we make of those choices. The speaker wants to believe that the road he takes matters and that it is the one that many others would choose to avoid because it is "less traveled." He may want to be perceived as an individualist, who would rather choose his own way than follow the crowd. We may not believe him, but we can identify with him, because when we get old and when we look back, we want to think we made the most of what life gave us.

The "not" in the title puts emphasis on the road which the speaker does not take (as opposed to the one he did take). There are many textual clues which imply that the speaker is troubled by the fact that he cannot go down the other road as well. We notice that he takes a long time to examine both roads, which suggests that he is really torn between the two options. He is aware that once he chooses a path, he cannot go back and discover what the other one offers:

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

Moreover, in the last stanza, the speaker says that he will talk about his choice "with a sigh," which suggests that he grapples with a sense of regret and sadness because of the impossibility of making more than one choice at a time. Despite choosing the path which he believes is the right one, the speaker cannot let go of the idea that he will never be able to see what the other path offers. 

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" speaks to the importance of making life’s decisions. The four-stanza poem describes a lone traveler coming to a fork in the road where he has to decide which way to go.

In the first stanza, Frost describes that “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” which indicates the traveler is on the road in autumn. The traveler takes his time looking far down one of the roads until he cannot see any farther because of the undergrowth. He takes his time deciding, which is symbolic of the decision being important, perhaps life changing.

In the next stanza, the traveler decides to take the other path “because it was grassy and wanted wear.” Although the paths seemed to have similar wear, on that particular day the second one beckoned him.

Frost describes the road again in stanza three and emphasizes the idea that it is autumn when the traveler is making his decision. He describes the path he took as having “leaves no step had trodden black.” On that morning, no one took that path before him. In literature, autumn is a symbol of the waning year, the need to do something in a timely manner, or the end of a life. In this case, the traveler has to make a choice and decides to take the less trodden path, and to remember the other for another time. He knows that he probably will not return to that spot because as time passes there are new decisions to made, and one thing follows another.

Finally, in the last stanza the traveler describes how he will tell about this trip and decision for a long time to come. He emphasizes that taking the less traveled path makes all the difference in his life. In other words, his choice contributes to the uniqueness of his life.

The poem is about a guy in the woods, and he comes across a fork in the road.  

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

One of the roads is more well traveled than the other, and the narrator decides to take the road that is less well traveled.  If you have ever been on a hike through some forested area, I'm sure that you have seen many trails that are exactly like what the narrator describes.  Both trails have their pros and cons.  You have to pick one, and you know that you are not likely to get to come back and choose the other trail.  It's a common occurrence.  

The location doesn't take on any kind of special significance until you "English teacher it."  The fork in the road is a metaphor for any "crossroads of life" that a person has.  At some point in a person's life there is going to be a decision (or many decisions) to be made between two equally appealing choices.  One has to be chosen knowing that the other choice will cease to be an option after the decision is made.

 The poem says that choosing the less traveled road has made all of the difference. That's an important detail to notice.  Actually, it's the lack of detail that is important to notice. The narrator doesn't say whether or not the choice made a good or bad difference.  It's the same thing with life decisions.  Sometimes a single decision will have far reaching and vast repercussions (good and bad).  Well, of course that choice has made all of the difference then.  

The differences in the two roads are very subtle, as suggested in stanza two:

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,

 ...long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" has proven to be a poem that lends itself to increasingly many and very different interpretations. One common interpretation is that the poem is a metaphor for the choices people must make in life and a parody of peoples' thought processes as they choose. Along with this interpretation comes the belief that the road "less traveled by" was the path that represents the most morally righteous path and the one that brought the speaker the most success.
Parody in the speaker's choices is seen in the speaker's observations about the roads, observations that are a bit contradictory. He spends equal time looking at both roads and thinks both roads look "just as fair" but feels the other has "perhaps the better claim" because it looks grassier and less used than the other road. Yet by the third stanza, he observes that both roads "equally lay / In leaves" that had not yet been trodden by feet. Hence, he shows confusion so common in choice-makers: First he notes the differences; then, he notes the similarities for such a long time that differences and similarities seem to blend all into one. This confusion in the choice-maker can be seen as moderately amusing, showing us that Frost is parodying choice-makers.

Yet, by the end of the poem, the choice-maker is convinced he has taken the road "less traveled by." We can see the two opposing roads, one more traveled and one less traveled, as metaphors for moral and immoral behavior. It can be said to be much more common for people to choose the immoral, irreligious path; therefore, the moral, religious path is always the one "less traveled," showing us that the roads serve as metaphors for moral and immoral choices. Hence, it can be said that when the speaker ends with "And that has made all the difference," though he may have some lingering questions, maybe even doubts, about his choice, he is ultimately happy and triumphant in his choice.

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is frequently taught in high schools as an example of symbolism. A symbol is an image, event, or idea that is meant represent both itself and something else. A symbol is often a concrete (real) object that stands for an abstract idea or concept.

"The Road Not Taken" starts with this line:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

These two roads represent a decision that the speaker in the poem is grappling with. We see from the next line that this is not an easily made decision:

And sorry I could not travel both.

He wishes he didn't have to make a decision that eliminated one of the possible experiences offered by this decision.

The two roads are actually similar. At one point he says that the road he chooses is

grassy and wanted wear,

but then he immediately says

though as for that the passing there had left them really about the same.

He also says:

Both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
In other words, they look about the same. 

So there is no significant difference between the two roads. We don't really know exactly why the speaker chose the road he did. Sometimes we face decisions like that in life and we just have to pick a direction and start on our way.

To determine the theme we need to consider the end of the poem: 

I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

A theme is usually defined as a statement about human life that is the central message in a work. A possible theme for "The Road Not Taken" that takes the entire poem into account is:

Difficult decisions may have a significant impact on the rest of our lives. 

Or:

People must make difficult decisions that will impact the rest of their lives, often without the benefit of much information.

The poem appears to be the thoughts of the poet Frost himself, and he has confirmed this in public appearances. It is the poet reflecting on a career choice he had made way back many years earlier. The whole poem is a long metaphor. The "roads" symbolize the choice he had to make at a critical point in his life between pursuing a conventional but secure career, perhaps as a college professor, and the alternative of leading an insecure and simple life while pursuing his true interest as a creative writer. We have to assume that by the road "less traveled by" he means he chose the road that fewer aspiring creative writers have chosen because it was, after all, too much of a gamble. As to why Frost took the "road" he did, it was evidently because of his belief in his talent and because of his admirable strength of character. 

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.

Frost's poetry is full of descriptions of the kind of austere life he was leading. "Mending Wall" is a good example, as is his "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Two Tramps in Mud Time," "Death of the Hired Man," and many other poems about the life of a simple New England farmer.

When Frost was asked on one occasion what he had meant by saying: “I shall be telling this with a sigh,” he told the questioner (I believe it was a college girl who asked him that specific question in a letter) that he was really only kidding. He did not regret the choice he had made to live a simple life and devote himself to his poetry. Frost had become a great success and was considered the best American poet of his time.

Many young people who aspire to careers in one of the arts--creative writing, music, painting, acting, or whatever--have to make a similar decision. It is extremely hard to make a living in the arts because there is so much competition and so much insecurity. Most end up taking the other "road," which often involves a compromise such as becoming teachers, commercial writers, copywriters, commercial artists, or some other alternative.  

To write prose and verse, to hammer out little tunes on the piano, and to draw and paint, are instinctive with a great many young persons. It is a form of play, due merely to the exuberance of their years, and is no more significant than a child’s building of a castle on the sands....The point I want to make is that this facility is, if not universal, so common that one can draw no conclusions from it. Youth is the inspiration. One of the tragedies of the arts is the spectacle of the vast number of persons who have been misled by this passing fertility to devote their lives to the effort of creation. Their invention deserts them as they grow older, and they are faced with the long years before them in which, unfitted by now for a more humdrum calling, they harass their wearied brain to beat out material it is incapable of giving them. They are lucky when, with what bitterness we know, they can make a living in ways, like journalism or teaching, that are allied to the arts.
                                  Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

"The Road Not Taken" is a poem with a theme of a traveler who chooses one road over another. This traveler will never know the joys of taking both roads. The traveler had to decide upon one road. Now he tells this story with a sigh because he is only one traveler who could not take both roads. The traveler has regrets. He wanted to take both roads, but he had to choose one road over the other. 

The traveler took "the road less traveled by" and feels that this road had made all the difference in his life. The traveler is a nonconformist. He decided to take a road that few people travel. He did not try to get in with the in crowd. He chose to be different. He chose to be unique in his travels.

Ultimately, the traveler feels he has made the right choice. Still, he does have mixed emotions because he could not travel both roads. In the end, he says: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Whether this difference is a positive in the traveler's life is still a question for the reader. The reader can assume that the traveler is saddened by not being able to take both roads. It is the road not taken that is causing the traveler to have regrets as he tells this with a sigh. 

No doubt, the speaker or traveler is fixated on the road he could not take. That is why he titled this poem "The Road Not Taken." The traveler will forever wonder what he missed by not being able to take both roads. 

The poem tells the story of the speaker's debate regarding a decision that needed to be made.

There were two possible roads that the speaker could use to travel through the "yellow wood." The speaker needed to determine which road to use. The only difference s/he can see between the two routes is that one of the roads appears to be less frequently used than the other.

it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

The speaker recognized, with some regret, that s/he probably would not be able to return to travel the road s/he did not choose. S/he decided to use "the road less travelled by" and realized that the decision would make "all the difference" in the way the rest of his/her life took shape.

The following was posted in eNotes by tiff72 enoter on March 10, 2009 under the topic of The Road Not Taken and offers proof that Frost's poem was about himself and a serious life choice he had made in his past.

"On one occasion he [RF] told of receiving a letter from a grammar-school girl who asked a good question of him: 'Why the sigh?' That letter and that question, he said, had prompted an answer.

Amherst Mass April 1925

"Dear Miss Yates:

No wonder you were a little puzzled over the end of my Road Not Taken. It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life. I suppose I was gently teasing them. I'm not really a very regretful person, but for your solicitousness on my behalf I'm
your friend always
Robert Frost"

[Finger, L. L.: "Frost's 'The Road Not Taken': a 1925 Letter come to Light", American Literature v.50]

In "The Road Not Taken," Frost could have been writing of life experiences. The poem is in first person which could indicate the speaker is Frost himself:

Frost wrote the poem in the first person, which raises the question of whether the speaker is the poet himself or a persona, a character created for the purposes of the poem.

No doubt, the speaker could be Frost. Frost writes with such detail about the indecision of which road to take. He titles the poem "The Road Not Taken." Frost is definitely thinking about the road he did not take. He writes that he shall be telling this story with a sigh. Only the writer could know such sadness at having to take one road while wishing he could take another road at the same time. 

Also, Frost states that he is "one traveler." He states that "long [he] stood" trying to decide which road to take. Frost knows too many exact details. Obviously, he is writing from personal experience. He stood looking down one road while trying to decide which road to take. If Frost is not the speaker, he certainly knew what indecision is like. 

He writes that he is sorry that he could not travel both roads. This statement could only be written by someone who has experienced the sorrow associated with deciding which road to take. Frost knows too much about the thoughts of the speaker. He understands the speaker's thoughts. He knows what the speaker is thinking. Most likely, Frost is the speaker for he understands the dilemma of the speaker all too well. 

Another point that could prove Frost is the speaker is that he knew that no step had trodden the roads:

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

Also, Frost knows the end of the story. He took the road less traveled by and feels that made all the difference. Sadly, he tells the end of the story with a sigh and will be telling his story ages hence with a sadness:

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.

Only the person who had experienced the difference would be able to write about it with such detail. 

Robert Frost once wrote:

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

Drama involves conflict. Frost creates a mini-drama in "The Road Not Taken." The speaker--presumably Frost himself--comes to a fork in the road of life and has to make a choice. This involves internal conflict. He stands at the crossroads trying to decide which road to take. He is frustrated because he fears he might make the wrong choice and in any case will never know where he might have ended up if he had chosen the other road.

Frost seems to be thinking about his own life experience.With his intelligence, talent, education, and personality, he could have gotten involved in some activity that would have led to financial success, but he knew he would have had to sacrifice much of the time he could have devoted to his writing. Instead, as is well known, he chose to lead a simple life of a gentleman farmer, not unlike that of Henry David Thoreau, another New Englander, whose best-known work is the American classic Walden.

Frost may have had some misgivings, but most of his admirers are happy he made the choice he did, because he became a great American poet and in his later life received all the recognition he deserved. His best-known poem is "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" (covered thoroughly in eNotes). All his poetry deals with simple subjects in homely settings, but most contain that element of drama he considered so important.

It sounds like your assignment is for you to provide your opinion in answer to these questions. Think about the background information you have and how it is reflected in the story presented in the poem.

Frost spent time at Harvard, his father's alma mater, but did not obtain any degree. He attempted various types of work, including teaching and writing poetry for a local newspaper, in addition to farming. These experiments with various occupations might relate to the "two roads" that "diverged in a yellow wood" - different directions that his working life could have taken him.

With the reception his poetry began receiving while he was in England, Frost's direction for his life was decided and confirmed - "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." He may have wondered how his life would have been different if he had followed a different line of employment, but he recognized that his pathway was established. "Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."

"The Road Not Taken" describes two paths that separate and move in different directions, forcing the speaker in the poem to make a decision regarding which path to follow.

The first stanza of the poem sets the scene, then describes how the speaker "stood and looked down one as far as I could." The first stanza becomes the representation of one of the two paths.

The second stanza presents the alternative, the second of the two pathways. It is described, contrasted with the first, and the speaker notes that it "wanted wear." The second stanza forms the picture of the second path.

In the third stanza, the speaker makes his/her decision and sets off down the pathway chosen; the fourth stanza predicts how the choice will be summarized in years to come. By dividing the poem into stanzas like the divided roads of the poem, Frost helps readers see the scene in their mind.

On a superficial level, the speaker needs to decide which path to follow through the woods. Both paths appear to be untraveled as the speaker studies the undisturbed leaves on the surface that morning. Neither seems to be particularly preferable because it would be easier or more scenic. The only apparent difference seems to be that one path appears to be less used than the other; the speaker decides to follow that path.

On a deeper level, the speaker may be faced with a decision point at a late point in life; in the autumn season, s/he needs to determine a direction for the remainder of his/her life. Either of the two choices would be acceptable, and the speaker is regretful that it will not be possible to follow both options. However, the decision is made to follow the road "less traveled by" - to follow the less common option or life choice. The poem ends with the speaker recognizing that this is a life-determining decision "that has made all the difference."

The difficulty with making a decision, especially a big decision early in life, like the one alluded to in the the poem, is this: for the most part an individual only gets a single chance at it.

As the poem states, once the decision is made: "...way leads on to way..." and there may well be no time later to "...ever come back.." and try another path.

Remember, the poem is called "The Road Not Taken." Once you have made your choice and lived your life, you do not have the opportunity to start over and see where the other road may have taken you.

I think part of the point of this poem is that the speaker of the poem has to choose between two paths that appear to be pretty much the same to him. Note how in the second stanza he starts to say that one appears to be less travelled upon than the other, but then he goes on to contradict himself, sayikng that both actually look identical:

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.

Frost seems keen to emphasise the way in which both paths are, to all intents and purposes, identical. The third stanza states that both paths had "leaves no step had trodden black." When we consider the allegorical meaning of this poem, it becomes clear why Frost emphasises the idnentical nature of the roads. Sometimes, we, when we have to make a decision about our future lives between one thing and another, do everything we can, like the speaker, to try and judge between the two decisions. We look down the path and consider whether the path has been travelled much or not. However, with a lot of decisions, we need to choose between two options that appear to offer no visible advantage or disadvantage to the other. We, like the traveler, have to choose one on impulse as it were, and accept that this choice may well have a major impact on our lives.

One of the overwhelming value brought forth in the poem is the realistic presence of choice. The choice made by the speaker becomes the central issue of the poem.  Through this, the reader can view that the challenge of choice is a significant value in the schematic of the speaker.  At the same time, being able to live with the consequences of one's choice is of significant value to the speaker, as well.  The speaker has to live with the decisions made, the reality forced by these situations and through this, the reader understands that these consequences and abiding by them is also of significant importance to the value system of the speaker.

Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a lighthearted poem in which the speaker alters the details of his past for the purpose of entertainment.

In the final stanza, thinking of some future time, the speaker writes that he will sigh, as if he is getting ready to tell a white lie or a big-fish story.  He will say that once he took the less-traveled path--using this as metaphor--and that has made all of the difference in his life.

Notice that in the first three stanzas of the poem the reader doesn't take the less-traveled path:  the paths are basically the same.  But sometime in the future he will turn this to metaphor and make a good story out of it. 

To me, this poem implies that the speaker wants to be a rebel, wants to be someone who does not conform to society.  But the poem implies that this feeling is somewhat of a fake.

The speaker does not really feel that either of the roads is any different from the other.  He talks about how they are both just as fair and equally trodden.  Therefore, there is really no difference and he knows there is no difference.

Even so, he wants to pretend to be a rebel so, someday, he's going to talk about how the road he took was less traveled and he's going to pretend that his choice was important.

One of the most compelling conveyances about the issue of choice resides in the mere setting of the poem.  The symbol of two divergent paths and the need to choose one highlights the human predicament of freedom poised with agonizing choice.  The speaker must assess what will form the basis of his choice, his action, his conception of freedom.  Throughout the poem, the speaker assesses each path's qualities.  One path might be more taken than another and may look more worn than another.  At the same time, another path has not been taken at all and this helps the speaker form the foundation upon which his choice will be made.  The idea of being able to choose between competing notions of the good and developing criteria upon which to make this choice is one way that Frost conveys the human predicament of freedom in this poem.

Within the first stanza, he shows a dilemma by have the narrator point out basic math. He is but ONE person and there are TWO paths. With in the poem there is now a sense of unsureness and of required agency. He cannot take both, therefore this is the initial instance of a dilemma. However, Frost is also relating this to real life, most choices do not allow us both options, it is either one way or another.

Next, in stanza two and three, he careful examines the paths respectively. By examining these paths, the narrator is hesitating, thinking, creating the pros and cons of the situation in his head.

If you are looking for specific technique terms, I would say diction. Frost uses diction to convey the dilemma by stating numbers. He quantifies the possibilities and the means to get there. Two paths, one person walking.

Frost uses defamiliarization when he compares a path in the woods to a human beings life.He makes the reader look at a path in the woods that is covered with grass and is unused in a new way. Now when we enter the woods and see a fork in the path, we think of Frost's poem; and then we realise that the decions we make in our lives have a serious consequesnce. or example, if we choose one major in college over another there is a direct consequence of that action. In another way, if we choose to major in a liberal arts field or an unpopular field of study there will be consequesnce. Those consequences are not only financial but express themselves in how we live our lives.

In the closing lines of "The Road Not Taken," Frost suggests that the path he took "has made all the difference."  "The Road Not Taken"  comments on both the process and product of the decisions we make.  In the poem, the speaker is poised between equally desirable, but ultimately incompatible courses of the good.  This ancient definition of tragedy is highlighted when the speaker opens the poem suggesting that he "was sorry I could not travel both."  There is little to suggest that one was the "right" choice and the other the "wrong" choice.  The reality is that the fork in the road diverged both, so he must be forced to choose.  There is no external criteria or set of standards to guide him, as he simply must decide based on what he deems as right and appropriate.  This is one of the first points the poem makes on the process of making decisions.  The choice between "good" and "bad" decisions is relatively easy. If poised in that situation, most humans would select the "good" choice because it is more desirable than the alternative.  However, when pitted between incommensurate goods, the predicament becomes a bit more nuanced and we might become "stuck."  There is nothing out there to guide us, other than our sense of decision making.  This process, as outlined, at the start of the poem, is what haunts us all:  "How do we make the 'right' choice when there is no 'right' choice, only being torn between 'right' choices?"

The speaker answers this dilemma with his choice.  He selects the road that had been less travelled.  There is a feeling that he could have selected the other road, if he had to do it all over again.  However, the resounding concept we gain from this poem is that the speaker made their choice, he made his commitment, his decision between equally compelling ends.  He made his decision, and while there might be some tinge of regret, or even contemplation about the what he left behind, his identity has been the sum total of his choices, and in this particular case the road less travelled,  "And that has made all the difference."   In making decisions, the speaker suggests that choosing a decision that we, as human beings select as desirable, that we, as human beings elect to stand for, and that we, as human beings feel is ours, become the best decisions we can make.  Sartre once said that the most challenging component of a human being's existence is the need "to choose."  Frost seems to be suggesting that this is where our greatest strength lies for if we select what we want, what we believe is right, and what we can defend, it can define us as who we are and make "all the difference."

The narrator admits that he will recount the story of the fork in the path with a certain wistful nostalgia, perhaps in wondering where life would have taken him had he made other choices (taken other paths).

The path in the woods is a universal symbol for the path of life, and the fork of course is the moment of decision; the path taken, the ultimate choice made.