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The Road Not Taken Summary in English by Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken Summary in English
This poem talks about the choices that one has to make in life and their consequences. One day, while walking in a wooded area full of trees with yellow leaves, the poet comes to a fork in the road and has to decide which road he should take. He starts debating over the choice as he realizes he cannot walk on both. The second road appears to be less travelled and he is tempted to walk on it even though the first path also appears to have been left undisturbed for some time. However, he decides to take the second path with the intention of walking on the first one sometime in the future.
At the same time he knows that the chances of his returning that way are slim, especially as he is aware of the manner in which one path leads on to the other, taking the traveller far away from the main path. In the last stanza, the poet becomes philosophical when he talks about a future time when he would look back at the choices that he has made in life and their consequences. He feels his life will be very different from others because he has always been tempted to take the path that is not generally followed by others. It shows the poet as an adventurous man ready to take risks in life. He does not appear to like following the conventional path.
The mood of the poem is philosophical and thoughtful as the narrator wonders whether his choice of the road he decided to travel upon had been the right one.
The Road Not Taken Summary Questions and Answers
Question 1.
On the basis of your understanding of the poem, answer the following questions by ticking the correct choice.
a. In the poem, a traveller comes to a fork in the road and needs to decide which way to go to continue his journey. Figuratively the choice of the road denotes:
(i) the tough choices people make the road of life.
(ii) the time wasted on deciding what to do.
(iii) life is like a forest.
(iv) one must travel a lot to realize his dreams.
Answer:
The tough choices people make on the road of life.
b. The poet writes, ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. ’ The word diverged means:
(i) appeared
(ii) curved
(iii) branched off
(iv) continued on
Answer:
Branched off.
c. The tone of the speaker in the first stanza is that of:
(i) excitement
(ii) anger
(iii) hesitation and thoughtfulness
(iv) sorrow
Answer:
Hesitation and thoughtfulness.
Question 2.
Answer the following questions briefly.
a. Describe the two roads that the author comes across.
Answer:
The author comes across a fork in the road as he is travelling through the woods. Both the roads look similar to him because of the undisturbed leafy undergrowth, but he senses that one of the roads has been trodden on less often than the other. .
b. Which road does the speaker choose? Why?
(Encourage the students to think creatively andformulate their own answers.)
Answer:
The speaker finally decides to take the road that not many people had walked on because it seems more adventurous than the route everyone seemed to take.
c. Which road would you choose? Why?
(Encourage the students to think creatively and formulate their own answers.)
Answer:
I would choose the road that many people have walked on because that is a tried and tested road. Many people have walked that path and achieved success.
I would choose the road less travelled because I want to do something different and carve out my own space in the world.
d. Does the speaker seem happy about his decision?
Answer:
No, the speaker does not seem happy about his decision because although he plans to come back to the path that he doesn’t take, he knows that the path that he has chosen might lead him to other, far flung paths. He might not get a chance to come back to the road that he did not take.
e. The poet says ‘I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. ’ What is ‘the difference ’ that the poet mentions?
Answer:
The poet talks about his decision of choosing a path that is different from the path that everybody has chosen to take. His choice of path will lead him to a destination that is different from the one that everybody has reached. This is the difference that the poet is talking about.