Robert Roberts's The Road Not Taken

Throughout mankind, paths and forks in the road have been used as vintage metaphors to resemble life and its decisions. People are always making decisions in life, whether they are small or big; decisions are the thing that determines our future. However, sometimes we make wrong decisions that we regret and aren’t proud of. We try to hide these decisions by fabricating what truly happens to make ourselves look innocent even though we know that we are guilty. The poem “The Road Not Taken” is one of Roberts’s finest writing pieces and consists of the classic fork in the road theme. The poem describes of an individual in the woods analyzing two paths and is unable to choose which one they should take. This creates the model of life and the decisions

The main theme of the poem is regret and this is shown throughout the poem numerous times. The line “Oh, I kept the first for another day” indicates that the individual is already regretting his decision and thinking about the other path by saying he will come back to it in the future. A key element that adds to the mood of this line is “oh” which shows the speakers personal emotions and affection for his decision. Another indication of regret is towards the last stanza. This is where we see that there is hesitation in the speaker about their decision and what they have done. Robert as well decides to repeat himself in the last stanza to connect the beginning and to summarize the setting of the

At some moment in our life, we have faced a situation where the atmosphere is tense and awkward. The poem in my opinion is representing an individual who begins a conversation with an individual to change the atmosphere on the bus. However, after changing the situation and becoming friendly, the speaker’s learned that it is impossible to go back to silence. “The difficulty is once you’ve spoken you can never go back to being comfortable with silence.” It creates the sense that even with breaking the tension it may bring more unwanted pressure which only makes the situation worse. “It may get so bad that one of you will have to pretend to fall asleep.” Alden is trying to express that although we want things to change it may not be for the best. This line personally makes me think about how sometimes we change things but don’t realize that they can never go back to the way they originally were. This poem as well creates an atmosphere of regret with the individual wanting things to go back to normal but knows there is no way back. Alden uses many metaphors throughout the poem to help with the imaging and understanding of the poem. I believe he chose the bus setting because it is one that most people can relate to, and as well as where many different people get together. Often times the bus is a place with great tension and privacy, people