The Road Not Taken Is Not About The Road Not Taken

Misreading Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Robert Frost writes a simple poem about choice—a traveler at a crossroads, facing two divergent paths, must decide which to take. This familiar dilemma resonates with the American ideals of individualism and self-determination, making it a relatable experience. Despite countless commencement addresses, television ads, and generations of high school reading assignments telling us this poem pertains to all of our lives; we are missing something important. Frost is speaking to a more unsettling truth: the self-deception underpinning what it means to be an American.

Americans are captivated by the notion of choice—of the paths we take and those we don't—as the defining moments of our lives. Yet, in our exaltation of these choices, there exists a paradoxical self-deception, a rewriting of history that empowers us to craft a narrative where we are always the architects of our destiny. Often mistaken for a celebration of individualism, we miss the poem's essence. Frost is critiquing the mythmaking at the core of America’s self-image, inviting us to contemplate the stories we tell ourselves.   

A traveler stands at a fork in the woods, weighing their options. Both roads are described as "just as fair" and "worn…really about the same," suggesting that their differences are negligible. A close reading of the poem reveals that both roads are identical. Yet, after choosing one, the traveler anticipates how they will later describe this moment with a sigh, claiming that their choice "has made all the difference." This anticipation is the critical moment of self-deception. The traveler is already rehearsing the story they will recount about their life, in which the choice assumes mythic significance. The traveler is not simply choosing a path in the woods but creating a story defining their life.

This is not just a characteristic of the traveler, but a quintessential American tendency that extends beyond individual experiences to collectively reshape reality to fit a story we’ve decided is too good not to be true. It’s not that the traveler is lying, per se, but that they are actively contributing to this collective fiction—the notion that our lives are the sum of our choices and that each option is laden with profound meaning. As Frost suggests, the paths in life are indistinguishable, and the disparities we perceive are more about the stories we tell ourselves than the options themselves.

This is more than a harmless self-deception. It feeds into a more significant cultural myth that elevates personal responsibility while downplaying the role of chance, race, economic circumstances, and countless other factors beyond our control. By insisting that every choice is monumental, Americans absolve themselves of the need to question the structural forces that limit those choices in the first place. The traveler’s rehearsed sigh of regret symbolizes a society that prefers the comfort of a well-told story over the uncomfortable reality that life is rarely as simple as a choice between two paths.

"The Road Not Taken" is more than a poem about choice; it’s a commentary on the doublespeak at the heart of the American dream. We tell ourselves that our lives reflect the sum of our decisions, but in doing so, we ignore how culture shapes our choices. The grand American vision of individualism and self-determination influences our personal histories. We all become some version of Ishmael on the Pequod, Henry David Thoreau on Walden Pond, John Wayne in The Searchers, Steve Jobs creating the iPhone, or Holden Caulfield on the streets of New York City. Whoever and wherever we are, we create a story that is, at best, a comforting fiction.

Frost’s poem speaks to a people who, trying to impose order on a chaotic world, end up deceiving themselves. The road not taken is less a missed opportunity than a reminder that our life stories are just that: stories. And like all stories, they reveal as much about our desires and fears as they do about the truth.