We all know the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. It's probably the most famous poem ever. It's on Hallmark cards, t-shirts, and even on New Zealand car commercials! We all know that we've probably misinterpreted it (The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong). But, I'd like to point something out no one has mentioned yet.
Here's the poem:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Alright, so we got the poem. There's a guy on a path, both paths are traveled the same, dum de dum. Right? Well, there's something I would like to point out:
"And looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,"
Alright, so everyone says these paths are the same. No they're not!
"To where it bent in the undergrowth". Undergrowth is usually described as dark, clawing plants. Thorns, brambles, gorse, berries, vines, and roots are usually 'undergrowth'. Ferns and heather sometimes are also used, but we're going to focus on the most commonly used undergrowth. Dictionary definition: "a dense growth of shrubs and other plants, especially under trees in woodland."
The first path is darker, covered in underbrush and tripping plants, and probably in a sort of forest.
The second path is "grassy and wanted wear." We can infer here the path is sunny, because it has a lot of grass growing, and people haven't really taken that path because it "wanted wear".
Now here's the kicker. "Though as for that passing there had worn them really about the same." Oh, so that means both paths were traveled the same? NIEN!
"Though as for that passing there". The passing there could mean the intersection, not the path itself. It would be strange to describe something as wanting wear and the next line saying it was worn about the same. What he means by the passing there, is the small intersection leading to the paths. As if saying other people were having doubts as he was.
The red arrow is probably where he means by the passing there.
So, what we can infer is that the darker, more dangerous path is the one more traveled, so he took the brighter, less taken path.
What're your thoughts on this well written poem? Comment below!!
