Supplementary Texts for Area of Study: CHANGE

Essay by rahulioHigh School, 11th gradeA+, May 2005

download word file, 8 pages 4.0

Downloaded 33 times

English Supplementary Texts

Assessment Task 1

[texts located on back page]

The Road Not Taken

Title: The Road Not Taken

Text Type: Poem

Source: Frost, Robert - Published 1916

Purpose: The primary purpose of Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' is to communicate the idea that decisions - and the changes that are the consequences of them - can not be avoided in life, and must be confronted. Its purpose is also to tell us that we must deal with changes and learn to accept them.

Audience: The poem uses primarily simple language that most people could grasp. Everyone makes decisions and undergoes change, so the poem is relevant to everyone, however its audience is most likely to be teenagers upwards.

Links to: Change

Frost's the 'Road Not Taken' has many links with the concept of 'change'. A major theme of the concept of 'change' is that 'change is inevitable'. In Frost's 'The Road Not Taken', the speaker is confronted by a diverging road, and is forced to make a decision.

Also the theme that 'change is ultimately rewarding' is predominant in Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' especially in the last stanza's final line "And that has made all the difference."


Symbolism - Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' is an allegory for decisions and the changes that are consequences of these decisions. The symbolism of the road creates the idea that change is inevitable because no matter how long you travel a road it always diverges, or turns and we must make a decision in which direction to travel. Ultimately this decision changes where we have ended up. Frost is using the symbolism of the road to tell us that life is a series of decisions and changes that all affect our final destination.

Personification - In the second stanza...