"The Road Not Taken" Paragraph

“The Road Not Taken” Robert Frost

                The poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost consists of one extended symbol. The narrator of the poem is walking through the woods when “two roads diverged” (1). The narrator is here faced with a choice of which road to choose. In deciding he remarks that one path was “just as fair” as the other except that one had been much more heavily traveled (6). Thus, he decides to take the “one less traveled by” (20). Clearly, this is not just a poem about a man’s leisurely stroll through the woods on a Saturday afternoon.  These diverging roads represent the eternally present need in one’s life to make decisions. For every single person in every day, two paths are presented in some way, and one must choose one to go down, whether it is simply what to have for lunch that day or what color socks to wear to soccer practice. These two paths are constantly appearing. Now, some of the choices made are trivial, but as Frost notes, in some cases making a certain choice “[makes] all the difference” (21).  There is always that lingering thought about the other path. What if the narrator had chosen that one? Where would he be now? In this way life goes by, constantly questioning decisions and having regrets. Sometimes those decisions are the right ones, and other times they are not. These two paths symbolize more than anything this growth of a person. They show the progression of life and how each decision leads to another and another. When life is stripped down to the basics, one is doing nothing more than coming to forks in the road and deciding right or left. Frost had the amazing insight to realize it.