Page 8 - Point 5 Literature Program Option 1 Teachers Guide (2) (1)

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
robert Frost

Student’s Coursebook, page 4

HOTS taught: Distinguishing different perspectives
Literary Terms taught: Metaphor, Symbol, Paradox,Tone, Stanza

Background Information

Biography
robert Frost (1874–1963) was an american poet who often used rural settings in new
england, on the northeast coast of the United States, to present his philosophy of life and
view of society. as a young man, he worked as a farmer and a teacher and spent three years in
Britain before World War I. he was a very popular and successful poet and received literary
prizes for his work, including four Pulitzer Prizes.

Cultural issues and relevant vocabulary
new england is an area on the east coast of the USa composed of the following states: Maine,
Vermont, new hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and rhode Island. These states are
full of woods and forests with trees whose leaves drop off in the fall season (autumn). Before
they fall, the leaves turn from green to red, gold and yellow colors – hence the ‘yellow wood’
in line 1 of the poem. once these fallen leaves are on the ground and are stepped (trodden)
on, they turn black (line 12).
Spectacular pictures of the multi-colored leaves in new england in the fall can easily be
found on the Internet.

General Interpretation
Point out the form of the poem briefly to the students before they begin reading. The poem
has four stanzas of five lines each with a regular rhyme scheme of abaab cdccd and so on.

In the first stanza, yellow wood tells us that the poem is set in the fall. new england is famous
for the wonderful coloring of the trees at this time of year, a phenomenon that our students
are not familiar with. This stanza presents the problem of having to make a choice, where both
options seem attractive: And sorry I could not travel both …
The second stanza offers the traveler’s considerations and deliberations before making his
choice. It seems that since he could not see very far, either way, he chose the road that was
grassy and wanted wear , i.e., it appeared not to have been used very much. This tells us that the
traveler was willing to try something different.
The third stanza tells us that he was the first to pass there that day. Fallen leaves, when stepped
on, turn black, so he could tell that no one had yet stepped on the leaves that had fallen the
night before. The last three lines show us that the traveler is realistic – he tells himself that he
will come back and take the other road, but at the same time he knows that this is unlikely
to happen.
The final stanza projects us into the future, when the traveler expects he will tell people that it
was this choice of the road less traveled by that has made all the difference to his life.
It would seem that as he will be telling this with a sigh, he regrets not having the opportunity to
take the other road, or perhaps this is a sigh of satisfaction with his choice after all.

8 The road noT Taken