also noteworthy to mention that the title of the work is “The Road Not Taken” when the poem is clearly about the road hedid take.  This merely refers to the fact that we always look back at the important decisions we make in life by thinking about the option we did not take. 

I'd suggest that the symbolism of the two forest paths is ultimately about choice. Within the poem, a traveler is described as walking through a wood when the road diverges into two paths, each of which stretch on out of sight.

This entire poem hinges around the image of the two roads, where the traveler must choose between them within this singular point in time. As Frost writes in the third stanza, the traveler will, in all likelihood, never return to this place. Even so, in the very next stanza, the same traveler expects that they'll still be thinking upon this moment years into the future:

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.

On the literal level, the traveler is walking along a road when the road splits and must choose between those two paths. On the symbolic level, it seems as though this divide refers to the choices one must make through life, whether major or trivial, and the necessity of making those choices. At the same time, the poem expresses the ways in which these past choices will still linger on long afterwards via regrets and second guessing. Everyone makes choices in their lives, and much like the traveler in the wood, they can only make them once.

Like many of his poems, "The Road Not Taken" shows Frost's strong connection with nature and natural beauty. He takes time to explain that the forest is "yellow," meaning that it is Fall, and that the path "bends in the undergrowth," showing how the forest (life) hides the future.

The narrator also mentions that his chosen path is "grassy and want[s] wear," meaning that the paths are not paved roads but dirt, meant for foot travel. Both paths are covered in leaves, reinforcing the Fall theme from before and the lack of travelers. Most of the imagery in the poem is visual in nature; the narrator doesn't mention bird, insect, or wildlife sounds, but the reader can imagine that the path crunches underfoot, seeing as how it is covered in leaves. Other sounds can be assumed from the fall setting, but none are actually mentioned. Similarly, there are no smells, tastes, or touch sensations mentioned; the poem is more about trying to decide the future based on what is known at the moment.

The last important visual image mentioned is "the morning," meaning that the narrator is just starting out on his journey. This symbolizes a still-young person, with many choices ahead, making one of his first major decisions in life. As the day (life) continues, he will look back on the "morning" and think about his decision, wondering if it was the correct one.

The speaker of “The Road Not Taken” describes a moment when he encounters a fork in the road he is traveling on. It becomes clear that the two roads symbolize the choices one makes in life, the moments of decision one arrives at again and again. The fork in the road compels the speaker to consider the role of choices in life and to imagine what he might tell others later about his choice. He examines both roads as much as possible and then chooses the second of the two, hoping he might try the first some other time,

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

The speaker is aware that once one makes a choice, it leads to other choices, and soon it becomes impossible to truly go back to the start and choose differently.

An important part of the symbolism here is that the two roads are effectively identical. The speaker tries to discern a meaningful difference between the two, looking for signs that one has been taken more than the other, but concludes that they are “worn … really about the same.” This shows that the speaker’s decision is less significant than he thinks it is. More symbolically, this suggests that people often overemphasize the weight of their choices.

The two roads represent two different paths through life. At different points in our lives, we face different choices. Some are more conventional choices, and some are more daring.

For example, writer and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was already in trouble in Nazi Germany for resisting attempts of the Nazis to redefine the Christian faith, arrived in New York in June, 1939, sponsored by friends who wanted to get him out of harm's way. The conventional path would have been to stay put, but a strong inner voice told he must go back to Germany and face that darkness, so he did. Like the speaker in Frost poem's, he took the road less travelled and never regretted the choice, even though he ended up imprisoned and killed.

Frost's traveller does have to choose which way to go. After studying his options, he picks the less travelled road—the one more overgrown with grass. He says the two paths were not that different but also that he never regretted taking the one he did. This choice suggests it can be rewarding to take even a slightly less conventional path in life.

If it may be said the the poetic persona represents Frost himself, then the roads may be his options and choice to be a poet. For the poetic speaker, the two roads symbolize two choices in life's path. For readers, the roads similarly symbolize two choices in life. Frost said that he preferred his poetry be called emblematic instead of symbolic: ""If my poetry has to have a name, I'd prefer to call it Emblemism," not "Symbolism," which is all too likely to clog up and kill a poem." (Burnshaw p 283).

Part of the effectiveness of this poem is that it leaves so much to the imagination. No biographical information is provided in the poem itself, and so it is not surprising that the poem has often been interpreted as a poem about making choices in life. The imagery of the poem is archetypal: almost everyone is familiar with what it is like to walk through woods; almost everyone is familiar with what it is like to confront two diverging paths; almost everyone is certainly familiar with what it is like to confront two options in life, one leading in one direction and the other leading in another.  Frost was a talented poet; he could easily have suggested a very clear, very precise, very unambiguous meaning to the work if he had wanted to. (Even a biographical footnote would have done the trick.)  Instead, he wrote a poem that seems deliberately thought-provoking and open to interpretation. Perhaps this is one reason that the poem is so widely read, remembered, and valued.

According to Robert Frost himself, this poem is about a friend with whom he often walked.  Edward Thomas was incapable of deciding which path they should take; then, after they finally went down one, he worried that the other might have been more scenic and pleasurable to walk upon.  In this poem that has come to be interpreted as so profoundly symbolic, Frost may have simply been satirizing a friend who has trouble making even mundane choices.

I feel like the more responses that one gets which mirror others the more comfortable one becomes with looking at it in the same way. I agree that the poem focuses upon choice. I tend to agree with pohnpei the most though. The way which one thinks about choices is far more important than the choice itself.

I don't agree that this poem is really about the importance of our life choices.  Instead, I would argue that it is about how we think our choices are important even when they're not.

Please note that there is not really any difference between the two roads.  The narrator, at the time of his decision, keeps talking about how they really are quite similar.  He will, however, look back at the decision and say that it made all the difference.  So I do agree about what the roads stand for in terms of choices.  But I don't think the overall message is about the importance of those choices.

I agree with #2. It is clear that there is no direct symbolism in the poem that links the roads to specific major life choices. This is its beauty and genius, as we are free to think of any of our major life choices ourselves when we consider the two roads that the speaker chooses between. It could be anything: to marry or not to marry, a particular job over another profession etc.

What has made this piece so well known is how the two roads can come to symbolize any major choice a person may make in their lives.  It also leaves it up to the reader as to whether or not taking the road less traveled is the better choice, since "and that has made all the difference" doesn't suggest whether it was positive or negative difference.

The road in Frost's famous poem is symbolic of the path that one takes in life. One chooses a particular direction, and the choice determines every other event that one may encounter. One's decision of a particular route, therefore, determines one's destiny. It is difficult to determine exactly where the route will lead, and a calculated guess or assumption is all one has, unlike a physical path that one knows will lead to a specific destination. 

Furthermore, the split in the road is suggestive of the choices we are faced with on our life's journey. In the poem, the speaker chooses the route "less traveled by." The only distinctive contrast between this road and the other that "it was grassy and wanted wear" (line 8). Other than that, the two roads were mostly similar. The speaker regrets the fact that he cannot travel both roads at the same time and is compelled to decide between the two. The speaker's difficulty is emblematic of the challenges we face when having to make life decisions. Although the differences between the options we have are often very small, we have to choose and may, in future, wonder what our lives would have been like if we had decided differently—just as the speaker in the poem does.  

Once a particular choice has been made, it is difficult and even impossible to return to one's original position for "way leads on to way" which means that an initial decision determines every other event that follows. The speaker affirms the fact that one might regret or feel sad about not knowing where the other choice might have lead to:

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,

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is potentially the most famous English-language poem. In the poem, a narrator is faced with two different paths in the woods. He takes one of these paths, and foresees himself claiming that this choice "made all the difference." The narrator sees his choice as significant whether or not the choice actually made a difference. In the poem, the roads and the wood are prominently featured, and these images are crucial to the poem's success.

The roads can symbolize a direction or path in life. Pursuing a career as a doctor could be seen as a "road." Studying literature could also be seen as a "road." In this poem, the narrator decides to take a road that has not been trodden by as many people. Some paths, like being a doctor or a lawyer, could be seen as well-trodden paths. Whereas others, like those in the creative fields, are harder to decipher. These would be less-trodden paths. 

The woods can symbolize many things, but they may best symbolize hardship. In this poem, the well-trodden path is often seen as less wooded, meaning it is an easier path to take. The less-trodden path is viewed as more difficult to travel. For instance, one could say a creative "road" is harder because there are more opportunities to fail. 

The two roads are not real roads but are a metaphor for a problem the speaker, presumably Robert Frost himself, encountered at a certain stage in his life. He was traveling, metaphorically, on a single road which diverged in a "yellow wood." He had to choose one road or the other. This certainly sounds like a career choice. Frost obviously wanted to be a poet. But this is an extremely precarious, if not impossible, career. Dante uses a metaphor similar to Frost's in the opening lines of his Inferno.

IN the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: 
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
Che la dirrita via era smarrita.

It would seem that Frost is writing about having to make a choice, common enough for aspiring artists of all kinds, of living very frugally and devoting his life to his poetry. What is unusual about the metaphor of the roads diverging is that they form a single image that dominates most of the entire poem. The metaphor is so dominant that it may persuade the reader that it is a real fork in a real wood--which it is not.

Frost chose to take the "road" which symbolized a life of simplicity and austerity. We can see in many of his most famous poems that he lived close to nature and did a lot of work with his own hands. He wrote about the "Thoreauvian" kind of life he had to lead in order to be free to devote most of his time to his poetry. This can be seen in poems like "Mending Wall" and "Two Tramps In Mud Time." In the last stanza of "The Road Not Taken," Frost seems to be wondering whether all his sacrifices were worth it. But that could have been the case regardless of which of the two roads he had chosen. 

As the fork in the road is symbolic of a choice that the speaker must make, the divergence of the two roads from the one can be read both literally and figuratively. Literally, the road splits into two "in a yellow wood," probably a forest in the fall, as this is when the leaves would be yellow in color as well as falling to cover the two distinct paths.

The speaker says that both roads "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black" on that particular morning, and so we are given to understand that autumn has arrived. This also tells us that the roads are located in a climate that experiences such an autumn, a climate that has plentiful deciduous trees, perhaps New England or some other northern state, or any other such place. We are not, it seems, in a rainforest, desert, or tundra.

Figuratively speaking, the two roads represent a choice—any choice—that the speaker must make, and this decision could take place some time, any time it seems, in the speaker's adult life. The speaker seems relatively young and strong to be adventuring in the woods by himself, and he also considers how he plans to tell the story of this moment "ages and ages hence." This shows us that he plans to live for a great many more years, which must make him fairly young now.

Consider the types of choices young adults have to make. To marry or not? To have children or not? When? What career to choose? To live near family or independently? Each decision will lead to another and another, just as "way leads on to way" when we take a road, which leads to another and another. We can never go back and choose differently, as though we've not already chosen. So, figuratively, the roads diverge wherever the speaker must make such a choice.

According to the poem, the "roads diverged in a yellow wood." It's impossible to pinpoint the exact location of these woods from a reading of the text. Judging by the poet's life, however, it's more than likely they were the woods outside Dymock in Gloucestershire, England. Frost lived there in 1915 and 1916, becoming an integral part of the group loosely referred to as the Dymock Poets. Another of these poets, and a close friend of Frost's, was Edward Thomas, who suffered from depression and often had trouble making important decisions. Frost and Thomas would often walk among the woods near Dymock. Some have surmised that the poem is simply Frost's way of making fun of his friend's ambivalence. Unfortunately, upon reading the poem, Thomas made the decision to enlist in the British Army, then fighting the Germans during World War I. Thomas was killed in action not long after arriving in France in 1917.

It's also entirely possible that Frost had no particular place in mind when he wrote the poem and that these woods are simply figurative. The poem is an extended metaphor about an important decision in a person's life such as a career choice or a life changing event. The divergence in the road is symbolic of two separate paths in life. Frost may have been referring to his own decision to lead a literary life. In any case, it is assumed that the reader will relate to the poem because of its universal theme.

Each of the two roads that the narrator comes across in the poem is described as ‘just as fair’, so appearing to be equally easy - or challenging - to traverse. They are both paths through the same ‘yellow wood’ and are therefore placed in a similar location.The narrator is indicating that there is little difference in the two paths, it is simply that he will, on this occasion, only be able to take one. The metaphor being used is that life is aboutdecisions, and often it is notthe validity ofone decision over another which has the impact, but the act of having to make a choice at all. 

The path he finally chooses is one that has been ‘less travelled’, but both paths have certainly been explored before:

Had worn them really about the same

The other similarities are that neither path had been used that day, and so each would be equally fresh and unexplored at that time.

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

At least three similarities are apparent between the poet Robert Frost and the speaker in "The Road Not Taken": (1) leaving Vermont to go to England in search of a publisher for his poetry (having left farming only because of his grief over the death of his daughter at his farm in Derry); (2) choosing between two things, farming and poetry, perceived at one time as equally common and at another as unequally so; (3) choosing poetry made all the difference for Frost, for poetry allowed him to tame his mind and emotions.

The poem starts with the line "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,...." Frost came to two roads diverging when, needing to make a living for his family and to leave his grief over Elinor's infant death behind him, he chose to seriously pursue a career as a poet, taking his family from rural woodland Vermont to England.
Stanza three ends with, "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same," (he says this despite the "undergrowth" at the bend of the path he did not choose). From his troubled circumstance in 1912, staying as a farmer or leaving as a poet may have presented equal perspectives to him; although "undergrowth" suggests a preference for the "grassy" way he did choose, which was England and an English publisher and audience. As an aside, one reason he opted for England was that he met with criticism from American academia because he wrote in traditional meter and rhyme instead of abandoning it for modernist poetic style.

The famous ending of this poem--published in 1916 in the collection Mountain Interval before Frost had won his first Pulitzer in 1924--says, "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." For Frost, his choice of taking the road of poetry did make all the difference because, as biographer Jay Parini said, his poetry, with its highly developed structure, allowed him to keep his demons of depression and self-doubt in check. It is at this point, the point of hindsight, that he confesses that the road he chose was indeed "one less traveled by."

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

In "The Road Not Taken," an important detail that contributes to the overall message of the poem is that the two roads are equally worn and equally traveled. Although the speaker hopes that later in his life, he can look back and believe he has taken the road "less traveled by," that isn't supported by his initial descriptions.

When the speaker faces his choice, he inspects his options carefully, wanting to be sure his path will lead to the "better claim." He looks down both roads as far as he can possibly see, but he finds that it's impossible to know the eventual destination because the roads curve and disappear.

The roads are actually quite similar. One isn't inherently more grassy or less traveled than the other. Note that in the beginning of the third stanza, he describes that they "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." Both paths are covered in yellow leaves and have seen no recent traffic. He chooses the second road but notes that the other is "just as fair" as his choice. The roads are equally worn, meaning that approximately the same number of people have traveled both roads.

Still, the speaker believes that at the end of his life, he will look back on this choice and take pride in taking the road that was tougher and that fewer people traveled. This imagined future account is misleading, and indeed many readers take the final stanza at face value, not considering the aforementioned reality that there is no road "less traveled by."

The obvious visual image of a winding path in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken is supported by other sensory images that the poem conjures. Frost's own love of nature is confirmed in this poem and his ability to create distinction when there is no apparent distinction is, in fact, what this poem is all about.

1. The "yellow" wood suggests that the seasons are changing as Fall arrives and this increases the reader's awareness that there is a consistency, even in change as the Fall follows its faithful pattern after the Summer. However, the reader should not overlook the way that the Fall changes the landscape dramatically. 

2. There is an appeal to the sense of touch as the tactile image associated with "the undergrowth" and how it is "grassy and wanted wear" brings a more concrete and tangible element to the poem. The reader does not have to rely only on the visual senses and is affected not only by how the wood looks but also how it must feel and can imagine walking there him or herself with the (possibly long) grass and dirt underfoot.

3. Leaves often have a distinct smell as they rot and as these leaves remain undisturbed and are not "trodden black," the reader may be able to imagine a very earthy smell, again alluding to the beauty of nature. This may be an obscure reference but, just as the poem can be interpreted various ways, so too can its imagery.

4. These same leaves would also appeal to the sense of sound as leaves are loved for making a crackling and scrunching sound when they are dry and brittle. There is a playfulness and youthfulness attached to the thought of jumping on leaves and making these sounds. Unfortunately for the narrator, he is taking his choice far too seriously to really appreciate this aspect. 

5. Apart from the overall visual image this poem introduces, there are individual references. The "sigh" may even have the reader emitting the same sound as if he or she sympathizes with the narrator.  

I think that a common thought from readers about this poem is that the two roads greatly differ in some way; however, that isn't supported by the poem. In the second stanza, the speaker lets readers know twice that the two roads are actually quite similar.

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,

In "The Road Not Taken" the narrator comes to a fork in the road and ponders his two choices. He looks down one road for a bit until it curves and he can see no more of it because of the foliage beside it.  This is the road more traveled, the "road not taken."

The road "less traveled" goes in another direction.  This road looks much the same as the other; he says it is

...just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear.

This is the road he chooses to take,

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

As he tries to decide which to travel, he sees the roads as being in much the same condition:

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

His choice, then, is between two roads quite similar in appearance.  Interesting to note the poem is titled for the road he doesn't choose.  Once he chooses, he has no regrets.

The two diverging roads in Frost's poem are undoubtedly metaphorical and represent choices he had to make about career and lifestyle. This is confirmed by Frost himself in a letter he wrote to a young girl many years ago, which I am quoting below:

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]

This was posted in eNotes under topic of The Road Not Taken by tiff72 on March 10, 2009. You can look it up in eNotes if you wish.

Frost believed that anything written should be dramatic or it was worthless. He made "The Road Not Taken" dramatic by describing a conflict. Conflict is the heart and soul of drama. The traveler (Frost himself) comes to a fork in a road in a yellow wood (indicating the season and his time of life) and is forced to make a choice without knowing where either road will lead. The road he chose "was grassy and wanted wear." This is a metaphorical way of saying that, unlike the majority of men, he chose to live a simple, frugal life in order to be able to devote his time and thought to his creative writiing. In this way he resembles Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, another New Englander who decided to forgo the pursuit of material success in order to devote his life to philosophy, the love of nature, and creative writing.

It is easy to see in Frost's poetry what sort of actual choice he made. His most famous poems, such as "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," reveal his choice of a life of simplicity and communing with nature. The road not taken might have led to one of the major cities instead of a New England farm. He might have become rich and lived in luxury. He might have even become a banker or a stock broker or a captain of industry. He intentionally relinquished those things, which is why he is telling about it with a sigh. The sigh, incidentally, is indicated by the break in the lines

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

But as he says in a letter written many years ago to a girl about your own age, "I'm not really a very regretful person." The road of life he chose led him great success as a poet. He is generally considered the best-loved American poet. His popularity is partly due to his emphasis on drama in his poetry.

There is something a little puzzling about the first two lines of the last stanza.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

"Ages and ages" suggests centuries. Did Frost believe in personal immortality? Or did he expect this particular poem to be read by many future generations? In that respect, he was correct. It looks as if he will continue to be read for a long time to come.

In "The Road Not Taken," the speaker makes the right choice in his choice of roads. He claims that the road he chose has made all the difference. Still, he cannot help but wonder what the "other" road would have held. He stands looking down the one road, wondering what the road has in store. And he takes the other road.

No doubt, the roads are symbolic in that each represents a journey in life. The speaker stands at the two roads trying to determine which road to take. How often in life is a traveler torn between two roads. In this poem, the poet takes one road and leaves the other for another day. However, he doubts that he shall ever come back because "way leads on to way."

The title of the poem reveals that the speaker is still thinking about the other road, the road not taken. The speaker is wondering what that road would have held. But it is too late to go back for "way leads on to way" and the speaker has moved on.

In the last stanza, the speaker states that he is telling his story with a sigh. That could be a sigh of relief. The speaker does say that the road he ultimately decided on has made all the difference. The reader assumes that difference is for the better. Only the speaker knows for sure:

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

This seems to be a case where we have to assume that the speaker is Robert Frost himself and that he is referring to the choice he made in how to live his life. We know what that choice was from the way he actually lived. He lived a very quiet, uneventful life in New England, doing a lot of his own farm labor and maintenance work. He chose peace, quiet, simplicity, and harmony with nature, not unlike Thoreau and Wordsworth before him. The alternative, the other road, would have been to pursue material success, which almost certainly would have meant moving to a big city like New York and possibly getting a job as a teacher, meeting important people, socializing, publicizing himself, living a hectic, competitive, urban life, as so many writers have done. These are two "roads" that go off in different directions, and no one can follow both. Frost was noted for his modesty and simplicity, which shows in almost all his poetry. He was well loved by the American people because of his personality as well as his writing.

The two roads can really stand in for any two choices or possibilities, including two different ways of life.  Just as the speaker considers the two roads before him, he might consider two possible life paths which are open to him at a particular moment in time.  He claims that the second option is "just as fair" as the first, just as two possible ways of life might seem equally appealing (line 6).  Further, he says, "[...] the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (9-10).  He means, here, that an approximately equal number of people have chosen each path, just as many numbers of people will have taken each of the ways of life which are open to us.  After the speaker chooses the second path, he engages in some wishful thinking, that someday he might return to that first path and see where it leads, but, he says, "knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back" (14-15).  Once one chooses a particular way of life, one cannot really switch gears and suddenly choose a different one, or, at least, it's extremely difficult to do so. 

Imagery is a literary device in which descriptive language is used to inspire mental images in the mind of the reader. Writers who employ imagery in their work carefully choose words and language that appeal to the five senses. In addition to evoking mental images, imagery can also be used to convey emotion.

In his poem "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost uses a great deal of visual imagery (as well as some auditory imagery) to help the reader create a picture in his/her mind and to communicate the emotions of the narrator, who is indecisive, regretful, and ultimately content.

The traveler in the poem is walking in the woods and comes to a fork in the road. The speaker stands at the fork for a time, looking at each of the two paths and contemplating which one to walk down.

Frost describes the "yellow wood" and the two paths the traveler must choose between. Both paths are very similar and equally worn, but the traveler can only choose one. By describing the visual similarities shared by the two paths, Frost communicates the traveler's difficulty in making a choice: one path is no more or less appealing than the other, which leaves the narrator with nothing to base their decision on.

Frost's use of visual imagery allows the reader to imagine themselves in the traveler's position, standing in the woods at the place where two roads split, trying to decide between them, and regretting the inability to travel both.

In the final stanza of the poem, Frost uses auditory imagery to illustrate the narrator's simultaneous disappointment and satisfaction: "I shall be telling this with a sigh." The reader can almost hear the traveler's sigh while reading Frost's words. This example of sound imagery is used to once again illustrate the traveler's imagined wistfulness in not being able to travel both paths.

A metaphor is defined as a "comparison which imaginatively identifies one thing with another." Frost doesn't specifically use the phrase "fork in the road" in his poem "The Road Not Taken," but he could have been thinking of the tines of a fork when he wrote the poem.

Particularly if the tines of a fork have been bent, they don't go in the same direction. If you try to use this bent fork to eat, you must make a decision about which side of the fork to use - which part of the bent collection of tines will work best to stab a bite of food.

In the same way, there are times in life when a person faces a moment of decision because there are multiple possibilities, but only one can be followed. At that point, the person is required to study all the possible courses of action and then make a choice, based on the best information available.

The metaphor of the "fork in the road" compares making life's decisions to following the tines of a fork.

I believe you are referring to "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. As the poem begins, the poet is poised between two roads in the woods, and they at first look similar enough to the poet to both be appealing. He looks down the first road to the point at which it bends out of sight. He then looks at the second road, which looks grassy and untrod, as it "wanted wear."

However, at the point where the poet stands, "the passing there/Had worn them really about the same." In other words, at the point where the poet stands, there is a lot of foot traffic that has worn down both paths to the same degree. In addition, "And both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black." That means that both paths presented the same amount of leaves that have not been stepped on. However, as the poet takes the second path, he says, "I took the one less traveled by." He realizes that this path is less trod on as he follows it further, and it has "made all the difference," meaning that taking this less used path has forever affected his future. 

One of the roads is well-traveled, and the other is overgrown.

In this poem, a road diverges in a wood into two roads.  Basically, the narrator finds himself at a fork in the road.  He has to decide which one to take, because he can’t take both.

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….

One of the roads is worn down, and the other is grassy.  Metaphorically, one is the direction most people take, and the other is lesson common.  The speaker decides to take the road less traveled, and he says that has made a difference.  What that means is up to you.  To some people, it means individualism is important.  To others, it means there are choices in life.

This poem is quite often misinterpreted as a poem about nonconformity, but it is in actuality a poem about choice.  The coordinating conjunction "and" is used 8 times, with 5 of those times being at the beginning of the lines.  Coordinating conjunctions join words, phrases, or clauses of equal weight.  Thus, even the language shows the equality of the two roads that diverged in the woods.

In films such as Family Man or Groundhog's Day or Butterfly Effect, we see how a different choice can have drastically different outcomes.  In real life, however, we reach many such junctures in our lives in which we must make a choice--whether it is between two schools or two places to live.  One choice excludes the other choice as "way leads on to way" and we are never again at that same juncture at that time in lives.  But there is no way of knowing whether or not our choice was right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse.  We just know that it made a difference.  What kind of difference--we can not determine.  That is why the language at the end of the poem is so ambiguous.  Is the sigh one of content or regret?

Frost actually wrote this poem for a friend of his whom he used to walk with.  It amused Frost that when they made a choice as to which path to take, the friend always complained that they had taken the wrong one.  Frost sent this poem to his friend, calling it "tricky."  Indeed it is.

Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a complex poem, so I don't know about anything "basic" being associated with it, except the common symbol of a literal road representing the road of life.  That's the standard symbol in the poem--a road represents the road of life--and that's how the speaker uses the road(s) in the poem. 

But that's where anything "basic" ends.  The poem is not a moralistic depiction of a person taking the road less traveled, or anything like that.  The roads are basically the same, the speaker writes.  There's no important difference between the two roads.

The poem is about the speaker wondering what difference taking a different road might have made, or about the speaker pretending to others that the road he took made a difference.  The speaker cannot possibly know what difference one road in life made compared to another--one can't lead two lives. 

But the speaker can see himself, sometime in the future, telling others what a difference taking one road made as opposed to taking another.  He will pretend that he took the less-traveled road.  He will create meaning where there is none--at least none that he knows of. 

The speaker is seeking meaning in the choices he's made, or, more likely, playing on other's need to seek such meaning.  The day he chose one path over another similar path will one day make a good story.

This poem has been much discussed and debated over the years.  I think it is important for you to look at the most prominent image in the poem:

"Two roads diverged (this means split or went in different directions) and sorry I could not travel both."

I think if you consider the following questions, you will have an answer to your question.  A traveler is walking along and comes upon two roads going in opposite directions.  He has a decision to make.  What does the traveler decide to do?  And then, how does he feel about that?

Now - put yourself in the shoes of the traveler anbd use this as a bigger picture metaphor for life.  You come to two "roads" in life.  Which one do you choose?  And when you make the same choice as the traveler in the poem, do you feel the same as he did?  Why or why not?

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is not a purely imagist poem, and thus the emotions are conveyed as much by overt use of emotional terms as implicit within the poem's imagery.

The first image which creates emotions is that of the "yellow wood". Autumn, because it marks the end of summer and the death of vegetation in temperate climates, is often associated with melancholy in poems. 

The description of the roads as not being worn and the leaves as not being trodden black suggests that the narrator views this wildness as something positive, or as an opportunity for exploration, although the images of the roads as unspoiled by human feet also suggest solitude or loneliness. 

The images of roads diverging suggests that choices made cannot be taken back, and thus evokes a sense of regret that of the possible roads the narrator can only take one.

With the progression of images in "The Road Not Taken," there is the movement of the speaker from looking back through memory. First, he peers in memory at the two roads and is conflicted about which to choose; then, he chooses one, but still worries that perhaps he should have selected the other. Finally, he thinks back on his choices with great regret. This order of images is a reflection of the speaker's character.

• "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood"

The images of one road breaking off from the other or, as it were, parting suggests that one went a rather unnatural way. This idea is also connoted by the use of the word "yellow" to describe the woods since yellow is a color that has conflicting associations. One that seems to fit with the word diverged in Frost's poem is deceit. It is also curious that the word "road" is used rather than path, suggesting a life journey, rather than a mere trek.

• "in the undergrowth"

This image suggests wilderness and, perhaps, even danger, which is, perhaps, why the speaker chooses the other path that is, instead, "grassy."

• "And both that morning equally lay"

The word "morning" suggests the image of a new day, a new blank sheet of life on which the speaker can choose to act as he wishes. This image implies that the speaker has the opportunity to make his own individual choice.

• "...leaves no step had trodden black"

Neither path is worn, but the image of "black" continues to suggest the darkness of the speaker's fears and dreads.

• "Two roads diverged in a wood..."

In the last stanza, the color "yellow" has been eliminated from the first line. Now, the line has no descriptor of the woods. Has the color faded from the speaker's memory? Or does he now realize that there was really nothing sinister about the other path? That the yellow was suggestive only of his fear may be the implication made here. "And that has made all the difference"; if he were more daring, perhaps, life would have been more rewarding to the speaker.