person walking through a forest

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

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Discussion Topic

Interpretation of Key Phrases in "The Road Not Taken"

Summary:

In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the phrase "way leads on to way" signifies how one choice leads to a series of other decisions, making it impossible to return to the original opportunity. This highlights the irrevocable nature of decisions in life. Similarly, "the passing there" refers to the realization that both paths in the poem are equally worn, challenging the notion of a distinct "road less traveled." The poem emphasizes the complexity and consequences of choices.

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What does the phrase "way leads on to way" mean in "The Road Not Taken"?

"...Way leads on to way."
 Life seems to have a way of bringing us to the end of one road, and forces us to start all over on an unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable way--a brand new ballgame.

Often things are not the way we hoped they would be, and if we’re not careful we find ourselves wishing we could go back—back to the past, back to our comfort zone.

In her epic novel, Gone With the Wind, the title captures a main idea in the novel.  The world of the old South (the past life) is gone—“It’s gone with the wind.” Mitchell has Grandma Fontaine, an old woman with an acerbic tongue, talking about the defeats and disappointments of the Civil War. Grandma Fontaine exclaims, “The whole world can’t lick us….But we can lick ourselves—by longing for things we ain’t got any more and by remembering too much.” 

As long as we...

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keep looking back, continue to nurse our wounds we will not make progress. There comes a time to dress the wound, bind it up with faith in God’s providence and let it begin to heal. It reminds me of Vince Lombardi’s words to his defeated football team, “Okay, men. Sack up your guts; let’s get going.”  

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When reading Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the time-worn expression about the "window of opportunity" comes to mind.  Once a person has passed up an opportunity,  a commitment to another direction ("way") other decisions and choices are consequent upon that first selection of life's path; therefore, returning to the opportunity is impossible and the "window" is closed forever to the person. The first decision is irrevocable.

Frost's expression of "knowing how way leads on to way," has a tone of the rue of many who reflect upon the opportunities that they have lost in their lives.

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This poem really is about the choices we make in life. If you look at it from that perspecitve "way leads on to way" means that one choice we make leads to a set of other choices and events and, really, there is no going back to make the same choice again.

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What does "the passing there" mean in "The Road Not Taken"?

The stanza in which "passing there" occurs reads as follows:

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
The speaker has come to a fork in the road and has to decide whether to turn right or left. In stanza 1, he looks down one road. In this stanza, stanza 2, he is looking down the other road, trying to make up his mind which way to go. First, he says he might pick this second road as it is grassier and looks as if fewer people have gone that way. Then, in the line in question, he reconsiders and second guesses himself. He says that as for "the passing there," it's actually about the same.
What he means by "passing there" is that, in reality, it looks as if about the same number of people have passed or walked on that grassier road as the road going the other way. In other word, he really does not see the road less travelled as that much less travelled.
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