The Road Not Taken

The Road not Taken

Reminiscing on my high school days, I can remember reciting this poem for a midterm test. I passed with flying colors and this poem has stuck with me throughout my entire livelihood. I take great interest in this poem because I feel that everyone can relate to it simply because it is talking about paths we choose to take in life. Some people tend to take the right path and others tend to be lead down the wrong path. The decision is totally up to the individual so the person must be mindful when finalizing the road to take in life. A path must be chosen, it is impossible to travel both so one must consider and reconsider their chosen path. Just like anything else, regrets can arise if the wrong decision is made.

I enjoy this poem because the mask, or persona, of the poem. The narrator draws you in and makes you feel they can relate to your life and they have too been down the same road of making important decisions. The author is revealing that all people have to make decisions when it comes to taking the right path in life.

The analytical approach taken when reading this poem was the reader response approach. This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that "literature" exists not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of a reader. It attempts "to describe what happens in the reader's mind while interpreting a text" and reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process. The author in the poem narrates the poem so well that it places the readers inside their decision making skills and allows them to relate the poem back to their lives and distinguish the roads they have taken and the consequences they are facing now as a result of taken the chosen road and eliminating the option of traveling both.

Taking this analytical approach can lead people to have different meanings to this poem. Some can take it as a lesson in life and others can really take offense to it being that they may have taken the less traveled or frequently traveled road. It really just depends on how the person takes in and digests what the narrator is delivering to its readers. The narrator has made it obvious that by taking the reader response approach that the choices we make diminishes all the other possibilities that other options and choices in our life could have made. In the end, eliminating possibilities makes a huge difference in decision making. There is not correct or incorrect meaning of this poem which is why this type of analytical approach helps everyone apply their own interpretation to the poem.

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