Discussion Topic
Irony, Ambiguity, and Paradox in "The Road Not Taken"
Summary:
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is rich with irony, ambiguity, and paradox. The irony lies in the speaker's admission that he plans to misrepresent his choice between two similar roads as significant, despite acknowledging their similarity. Paradoxically, the speaker describes both paths as equally worn, yet claims his choice made "all the difference." This contradiction highlights human tendencies to ascribe importance to choices and how nostalgia can alter perceptions of past decisions.
What is the irony in "The Road Not Taken"?
The irony in “The Road Not Taken” is that the speaker admits that he plans to misrepresent his choice between the two roads when he tells the story in the future. Throughout the poem, the speaker provides several clues that although the decision between the two roads feels significant, the roads are similar and have been traveled about the same number of times. Although the roads initially seem different, the speaker acknowledges that
the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
In other words, about the same number of people have passed down each road, wearing the paths the same amount. Further, the two paths
equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
No one has walked down either road this particular morning, as the leaves atop the roads are freshly fallen and untrodden by others’ footsteps.
However, the speaker says that when he tells...
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the story of his choice “ages and ages hence”—a long time in the future—he is going to say that he
took the [road] less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
He plans to say that one of the roads truly had been less traveled than the other and that he chose that road, but he has already made it clear that there is no road "less traveled by."
There is great irony in this disjunction. At some level, the speaker knows that it is human nature to ascribe great importance to one's life choices, and he thinks he is bound to misrepresent his experience for this reason.
What are two contradictions in Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" when discussed in literary terms?
Paradoxes, or contradictions, in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" are found when the speaker describes two paths:
1. They are "just as fair" as one another, but he takes one "Because it was grassy and wanted wear," which suggests that it was different, after all.
2. Nevertheless, the speaker claims that they are "worn...really about the same." So now he claims that they are not different.
3. Then, in the third stanza, the speaker notes that the paths that morning--
...equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black...
So, the implication is that neither path has been traveled.
4. The speaker says that he notes the first path for a later date, but doubts that he will ever return.
5. In the last two lines of the poem, the speaker notes that he
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
These lines seem contradictory to the title which is not about the road the speaker has taken, but about the one not taken.
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Discussion of two contradictions in literary terms
1. In the opening stanza, the "wood" is described as "yellow." This color imagery suggests a luminous quality, inviting; on the other hand, yellow is sometimes the color of danger and foreboding, as well. The path is a metaphor for the life choices of the speaker, who is very serious; Frost himself "sighs" and declares he will be retelling his tale as a humorous way of mocking his speaker. So, there is an ironic use of metaphor, as well.
5. Frost's poem, which is reportedly about an indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, with whom Frost took walks, describes the vacillation of the speaker who, like Thomas, experiences difficulty in making choices, and once having made them recriminates himself for not having taken the other. Hence, the paradox of the title: while the speaker describes the decision of taking one path, he cannot keep from thinking about the other choice, "the road not taken." This is what Thomas always bemoaned at the end of his and Frost's walks: "I wonder what the other path, which seems to haunt him, may have been like?" While the choice of the word "road" is rather strange for a wooded path, its symbolism aggrandizes it to that of major decisions in life, perhaps. Certainly, the word connotes (literary term=connotation) the Roman road, one laid by the labor of humans.
Where can you find irony, ambiguity, and paradox in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"?
There are two crucial stanzas in "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost that are essential to the comprehension of the poem. The juxtaposition between these two moments explains the irony, ambiguity and paradox present within Frost's masterpiece. These stanzas are the second and final stanzas.
SECOND:
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,
I shall be telling this with a sighAn examination of these two stanzas demonstrates the paradox in the poem. The narrator explains that both of these roads are "worn... really about the same," and yet at the end of the poem the narrator claims that the road he took, which was less traveled by, made all the difference. This "less traveled by" is in direct conflict with "worn... really about the same." While some readers gloss over this juxtaposition, it is a crucial moment. The ironic (and ambiguous) part of the poem is that his choice of road didn't make any difference. The narrator is saying that people often proclaim their choices were special, when in fact they were standard. Frost is noting how nostalgia and narcissism transform how people talk about their past events and choices.
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.
References