Whats your interpretation/analysis of this poem?

Question

The road not taken by Robert Frost

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

thnx

Answer 1

It is a poem written by Robert Frost about a man he very much disliked, a man he thought was a phony  (he said this, himself, in an interview regarding the poem).  In it he is making fun of the man's need to be special, and he is taking a stab at the man's envy and competitiveness.

The poem is saying, therefore, "One road is in some ways better than the other, and most people take that one, but I'm so special I'm taking the one the others didn't take, and I'm better off for it, as well."  Frost is making fun of this person's need to compare, to compete, to actually fail (he won't get a chance to go back and try the other way) and yet lie to himself that his "unconventional" ways are better than the ways of others.

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Answer 2

He had to make a choice between to things and choose the more unpopular option.  

Answer 3

This was a difficult poem to interpret, or at least that's what I thought when I first read it years ago.

At first, I agree with those who already answered in that the traveler saw to roads, two choices, and took the one less traveled, the more difficult path.  There was a sense of adventure in taking this path since it was "grassy and WANTED wear".

It was the first line in the last stanza that threw me - "I shall be telling this with a sigh" - I interpreted that to mean the traveler regretted making the choice.

Answer 4

Well it seems that the roads are a metaphor for choices and paths that you take in life.  First, he cannot decide which route to go. By the end he decided to go down a less common path, as to say that he made a different choice or did something and didn't follow the trends or didn't take the easy route, and because of this, something good came of it.