The Road Not Taken (Or Less Traveled?) – Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

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 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!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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.

Poetry should communicate different messages to people. It’s almost impossible for two people to read something and derive the same message. The meaning you derive out of something depends on your life experiences, how many times you’ve read the poem, the mood you were in, the most recent experiences you’ve had, how old you are – and that’s not just true for poems, It’s true for music, movies, books, quotations, and any form of art.

What this poem represents to me is the tragic story of life. We only get to take one road. And the one we take will – by definition – cut off other potential roads we might have taken. Every decision we make deprives us of entirely different realities we might have experienced. And it’s tragic because we might have found the most meaning and joy in one of the foregone potential realities. But time and space are finite. We don’t get to experience those potential realities. In fact, we only get to experience one reality out of millions of potential realities.

Its tragic enough that we only get to experience one stream of events in our lives and not other potentially better ones. But it’s even more tragic when we do it against our will. And it’s most tragic if we do it against our will while thinking we were acting freely.

It’s not always obvious that we’re doing what we really want to do. We might adopt other people’s expectations of what counts as a good life, sacrifice our true individual beliefs, and believe that we’re living autonomously. What makes this the most tragic life path is that the tragedy is concealed and potentially irreversible.

If you were doing something against your will, at least you know you’re doing it against your will. You know exactly what your will is, and that someone or something is transgressing it. The nature of your reality is clear. Of course, in this scenario, you’d be struggling – but there’s meaning and heroism in the struggle towards something you genuinely want.

The tragedy is leading a life of deceit – be it externally imposed or self-inflicted. You fight a battle that isn’t your own. But you believe it’s your battle, and when you lose, you’re devastated. But even when you win – you eventually realize that you were fighting the wrong battle all along. It’s the worst possible tragedy because, given enough time, no good can come out of it.

Going back to the poem. I don’t really care what the author intended, and I think people often care too much about that. They care why a musician wrote a particular song, or why an author wrote a particular poem or book. They tend to over-stress the bounded meanings that they believe could be extrapolated and they criticize others who they think are missing the point.

But I think such an exercise is missing the point entirely. Unlike an instruction manual, a piece of art isn’t supposed to be rationally bounded – or even logical, or have a singular interpretation. It’s supposed to provoke a unique reaction from every individual that experiences it.

That’s one reason why something as short as a poem or a song can remain popular for so long. It’s because people tend to interpret it differently based on their set of idiosyncratic set of beliefs and experiences.

A lot of people think about life in literal terms. They believe that there’s a correct way to eat, play, sing, write, interpret art, speak, and work. There isn’t. Partly because life is too complex, and because human beings are too complex. It’s futile – even stupid, to try to reduce aesthetic meaning to a fixed set of explanations.

Interpreting the Sigh

You might think that “sigh” in the end of the poem symbolizes Frost’s begrudging acknowledgment that in old age he will always have some regret for having chosen to traverse the path he had chosen – despite claiming that he bravely chose the path that was seldom taken. That’s one way of looking at it.

He is genuinely proud of the fact that he took a road that was seldom taken (without any regret) and the sigh indicates a feeling of tiredness from having to repeat the same exact story multiple times. Think about a successful businessman recounting a key decision he made in youth thousands of times.

What he really wanted to do was take both paths but had to force himself to choose one.

He’s sighing because he wishes he could relive that life. Now it’s all behind him, and his heroics are in the past. All that’s left for him to do at this point is recount tales of past glory. If only he could be young again. If only he could go back to a time where he was struggling and making brave, tough choices.

The Road not Taken or Less Traveled

Some people interpret the poem as an ode to the choice to live an unconventional life – to take the road less traveled. Other people interpret the poem as an old man’s secret acknowledgment that the road not taken could have been the better road.

Both interpretations work. If you’re someone who’s depressed or feeling melancholy – then the second interpretation is probably more suitable. If you’re someone who’s taking a big risk with your life by following an uncommon path, then the first interpretation works better for you.

Language that is too precise and literal is boring. That’s why instruction manuals are painful to read. They’re confined to one level of analysis and that kind of certainty is antithetical to the things in life we find meaningful.

There’s never one way of looking at something. There’s never one way of interpreting something. There’s never one side of an argument.