Stopping by the Woods and the Road Not Taken

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" both portray the weighing of choices in life. One is about youth and experiencing life and the other is about old age, more so an old spirit wearied by life. In both poems, the speaker is found in a particular situation where he must to choose between two paths in life. In "The Road Not Taken" the speaker chooses the unconventional approach to the decision making process, thus showing his uniqueness and challenging mentality while in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" the speaker pursues having a life without any pain or struggle. Eventually, he complies with social obligation, which reflects his responsibility towards the society.

In the poem, "The Road Not Taken", the speaker has to make a big decision in his life. This poem talks about a person who comes across an intersection or a fork in the road whiles hiking through a yellow-leaved forest and he has to choose which path to follow. The road is like a metaphor of the choices that we make in life. As the speaker contemplates his choices, he strongly feels that good will come for whichever "road" he decides to take. He must weigh his options wisely in order to help him make the best choice so that he does not end up regretting his decision in the end. He says, "And looked down as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth", by giving it a proper thought he weighs his choices well and in the end, chooses to follow the road "less traveled". "The Road Not Taken" signifies a difficult choice in a person's life that could offer either an easy or hard way out. There are no assurances of what lies ahead or if there will be success or sorrows. A person has to take risk making up his mind about which way to choose because this is the first step of heading into success or failure in life. At the end of the poem, the speaker says, "that has made all the difference", which shows choosing the harder path gives the speaker the fulfillment he sought.

After analyzing both paths, the speaker concludes that each path is equally appealing, but one being more traveled than the other. After deciding to continue down the less-traveled road, the narrator tells himself that he will return to this fork one day in order to attempt the other road. However, he quickly fathoms that it is unlikely because his choice of path will merely lead him to other forks in the road. The speaker ends the poem on a nostalgic remark, wondering how different things would have been had he decided to go down the other road.

Like "The Road Not Taken", in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", the speaker has to make a big decision in his life. He has to choose between isolation and social obligation. At first glance, this poem might denote stopping in the woods to escape the hustle and bustle