The Road Not Taken – Analysis and Interpretation

1. What is the setting of the poem? How do you know?

2. Explain what the traveler means when he says: “to where it bent in the undergrowth”.

3. What do the roads symbolize in the poem?

4. Define the most prominent literary device in the poem, and explain how it is used.

5. How would you explain the sigh in the poem? How can you connect it to the theme of the poem?

6. Why was it so hard for the speaker to decide which road to take? Give ONE reason.

7. Why did the speaker choose the road he did?

8. The speaker says: “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”. Explain this quotation. Do you agree with the speaker? Explain your opinion.

9. Frost ends the poem: “and that has made all the difference”. What difference is he referring to?

10. The last stanza begins: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence”. What does “ages and ages hence” mean?

11. The last stanza begins: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence”. What connection can we make between this quote and the title of the poem?