Critical Comparison of Two Frost Poems Essay

Frost attempts to bring to the reader his character ‘s experiences with the world. The thoughts of the character are limited to his immediate surroundings but through the poet ‘s careful pick out of words they echo to the reader ‘s own understanding, of the general concept of life and his world and his place. I will examine, two of Frost ‘s poems: The Road Not Taken, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I will, compare both poems by the effect of its words, sounds, and images and how this is significant and which effect does it have. The character in Frost ‘s poem The Road Not Taken has an immediate and acute interaction with his world as early as the first stanza. It manifests itself in the form of a crossroads , which for some time leaves the character agonizing for a choice . This contact is important : its existence signifies that life is not linear , and has not delineated a given path for an individual to take . They diverge into many , many roads , each with its own consequence and destination. The subsequent decision and step of Frost ‘s traveller opened up a multitude of implications of his interactions with the world . The traveller must have carefully studied and pondered over the better path or one that has more promise . His decision , in the end , was arbitrary Frost ‘s of the path ‘s grassy and wanted wear , on which stood the basis of his choice , was easily refuted by the line that followed : Had worn them really about the same . The poet gives no indication of difference nor anything striking that might impel his character from going to one path in preference to the other . He is then faced with this realization : no two paths are so similar that they can be mechanically compared . It echoes in a deeper understanding that in life , sometimes decisions are made without solid basis or moral certitude , and their value are just about the same – based on how the individual acts in his decision. Taking another look at the character ‘s sudden leap , we can offer another quiet observation : while he inspected one road To where it bent in the undergrowth , he took the other , as just as fair . We have already discovered that they were substantially the same path , and of the same quality . If we take a short look at a later stanza , we would see that Frost ‘s character had meant to save that way for another time ( Oh , I kept the first for another day . This thought , and the subsequent decision , stemmed primarily from the seeming grassy and wanted wear claim of one path. One important gem of thought to be found here is that in life , there are no absolute , predictable moments . Man was moulded with freedom of thought , will and choice . He is a dynamic being , and subject to capricious whims and moments of spontaneity . It is this freedom , in fact , that keeps him from being ensnared in stasis , and indecision He may act without apparent logical basis , and he need not even do so We are given another gem, in this spontaneous act : the traveller ‘s wilful act was rooted in a desire to break from routine . It was as if some inner desire impelled him to shy away from the normalcy of everyday life . This , to him , was a proud moment ( I took the one less travelled by that has made all the difference . His realization of its value elucidates the fact that Man should not entrap himself in cycles and routines , for there was a world out there that wanted wear , and has yet to be discovered. This act becomes that milestone in a person ‘s life where he becomes aware of his world , and how this one small action has a hundredfold meaning . It is not , however , altogether complete – though he has made the profound discovery of the meaning of his one choice , and its inherent great value , he is also made painfully aware of his humanity His regrets throughout the poem ( sorry I could not travel both . I doubted if I should ever come back , as well as the wistfulness of the title itself ( The Road Not Taken ) are at the heart of every human desire . Men are inherently imperfect , and cannot absorb the infinitesimal of the universe , much less all of the world ‘s experiences It is a bittersweet afterthought that how way leads on to way ‘ there was no going back to the original route . One is reminded at this juncture of the wise counsel of Ignatius of Loyola , that once a choice has been made and made irreversibly , then one should not fret over its being unmade : We can change its effects , but the act of choosing is over and done with.