The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Question 1

Themes? (3)

Answer 1

Life, choices, free will,

Question 2

Tones? (2)

Answer 2

Nostalgic, contemplative

Question 3

Context? (2)

Answer 3

• Frost claimed that the poem was inspired by his friend Edward Thomas, the Welsh poet.
• Frost wrote the poem at the start of World War I, just before returning to the United States from England.

Question 4

Meaning and purpose? (5)

Answer 4

• The speaker walks through a forest
  whose leaves have turned yellow in
  Autumn and comes to two paths in
  the road.
• The speaker regrets that
  they are unable to walk both paths.
• They stop and see where the paths
  go but cannot as the forest is so
  dense.
• They take the second path
  but realises that the two are equally
  worn.
• The poem implies that it’s less
  important whether the speaker’s
  choice actually “made all the
  difference” than it is that he or she
  believes that it did. The poem can
  be read as a celebration of
  individualism and free will.

Question 5

Language? (5)

Answer 5

• Extended Metaphor- the road
  symbolises the choice people must
  take in life.
• Personal pronoun “I” to suggest that
  we have free will and can determine
  our future.
• Assonance in stanza 2- adds to the
  musicality and creates a mask of
  positivity.
• Metaphor of the grassy path
  needing wear and the other just as
  fair- perhaps suggesting that the less
  travelled path is more
  unconventional and this nonconformity is a positive trait.
• Symbolism- yellow wood- suggestive
  of Autumn and change.

Question 6

Form? (3)

Answer 6

• Enjambment in stanza 1 to suggest a cascading moment of uncertainty.
• Repetition of ‘and’- highlights the speaker’s uncertainty
• Epizeuxis in the final stanza, in the
  repetition of the word “I,” emphasizes the importance of the poem’s speaker as the sole agent.

Question 7

Structure? (3)

Answer 7

• Formal verse (meaning that it rhymes and has a strict meter), but it doesn’t adhere to any specific poetic form (such as a sonnet) that dictates, for instance, how many lines a poem must have.
• The four stanzas loosely correspond to the four stages of the speaker’s engagement with the decision which the poem takes as its subject
• Loose iambic tetrameter, meaning that each line mostly consists of iambs (unstressed-stressed) and has roughly eight syllables. However, Frost frequently substitutes anapests (unstressedunstressed-stressed) for iambs throughout the poem. Frost’s approach is not strict, lending the poem a pleasing rhythm while
  still allowing for him to employ an informal, reflective tone.