Monday, November 10, 2008

What do you think the poet is trying to say about choices in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"?

I don't believe the poet intended to write an essay about choices but was only thinking about one specific choice of his own which he made a long time ago. I believe he must have been thinking about a very important choice and that it was a career choice. Robert Frost knew he had poetic talent and that he wanted to devote his life to writing poetry. However, he also knew that it is so difficult to make a living writing poetry that it is nearly impossible. Shakespeare himself couldn't do it. He had to get into show biz, and he always felt a little ashamed of the way he made his money. Any kind of creative work is risky. Even if a person has one success, that means nothing. He could still find it hard to make a living for an entire lifetime. And what if his inspiration deserts him? A man who wants to get married and have children is not only risking his own welfare but those of the people he gets involved with. He will find that he has to choose between art and money, or else become a hack, like so many others. Many creative people think they can compromise. They think they will get some kind of tolerable job and then devote as much of their free time as possible to their creative work. It is very difficult. It is like trying to travel down two roads at once. Frost was a hard-headed Yankee. He decided to live a spartan life, not unlike that advocated by Henry David Thoreau in Walden, and devote his full time to his poetry. Eventually Frost became famous, but it took him a long time, and he seems to be wondering in "The Road Not Taken" whether it was worth it. He may have won the battle. He was recognized as America's leading poet. But that doesn't mean what he did would be right for everybody!

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