Interpretations, Intentions, and Chances

“The Road Not Taken” and Taking a Chance

The new year brings resolutions, promises, and chances that can be ignored, compromised, and broken. A closer look at “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a good way to ring in the new year and discuss the idea of taking chances.

Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is a high school standard. It is a pretty slim percentage of students who get through twelve years of public education and don’t read Frost’s poem. Various readers’ interpretations argue the poem is about pursuing dreams, being an individual, and/or taking a chance on the road less traveled. The author’s intentions with the poem don’t quite address those ideas. According to Frost, “…it’s a tricky poem—very tricky,” and the two roads that are so important to the poem’s central message are according to the author, “really about the same.”

Whether you subscribe to the idea of reader’s interpretations or author’s intentions it is important to realize that the speaker of the poem must decide to take a chance in either interpretation. We live our lives with certain intentions. We interpret the events of our lives in various ways. But the intentions and interpretations fall flat without first taking a chance. Taking a chance may not change our lives but we’ll never know unless we take it.