The Autobiography Not Taken
By Daniel Hess
The Road Not Taken
by 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 the wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In this poem, the narrator’s voice can be heard as he comes to a fork in the road, deliberates, and ultimately chooses the “road less traveled by.” The apparent moralizing thrust of this narrative is obvious enough that it can distract us from the puzzling contradictions that are equally visible. One of the most obvious contradictions (to which we will return shortly) may be the final claim of the narrator that he took the road less traveled by, despite his earlier suggestion that both roads appeared to hold similar appeal and be similarly worn. If we ignore these contradictions, there is a surface level interpretation of this poem that readily expresses a few nuggets of conventional wisdom. These are important truths about choices and consequences, but ironically (no doubt the author was very interested in this irony) they also lend themselves to the philosophical misappropriations of the self-deceived person. Anyone could use this type of ‘road-less-traveled’ narrative to bolster any major decision in life, for better or worse. The prodigal son, on his way out the door, could tell himself that he is tired of internal dissonance, and even at the cost of losing his family must find mental clarity. The older brother, as he looks on with a mixture of envy and self-righteousness, is energized by the thought of his own faithfulness.
Many of us, no matter what our path in life, can identify with the desire for some level of confirmation of our choices. In misguided efforts to seek this confirmation, we end up telling (to ourselves, if no one else) our stories wrong—in ways that bestow more moral courage than we deserve. This is how self-deception, however subtle, works.
The ‘road-less-traveled’ narrative is one possible outcome of the poem, based on one level of interpretation. You could call it the exterior message of the poem. But I think there is an interior meaning which takes shape as the antithesis of the exterior message. Read this way, the entire poem becomes not only a glimpse at the psychology of decision making, but also a veiled satire on the human tendency toward autobiographical error. Even with the best of our artificial humility, we are not good at telling our own stories.
Even if we have got the hang of pretend openness, we still want to look better than we really are. For example, I might be willing to present myself as a loser by normal standards, but deep down in, I want you to think that I am not your run-of-the mill loser. I might frankly own my lack of motivation, or some type of underperformance, when what I really want you to admire is my authenticity, my immunity to social expectations, or my talent for being laid back.
Variations of this theme abound, and more examples could be given, but it may be most helpful to return to the poem itself and see the narrator’s pre-conceived autobiography.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in the wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Perhaps the clearest clues to the inner satire of this poem show up in this stanza. For one thing, it is puzzling. Something here causes the attentive reader to slow down and take a closer look. What tone is the narrator using? Is he bragging or complaining? If he was so indecisive about which road to take, and so vague about the criteria he used in reaching a final choice, why is he suddenly so convinced of his decision? And if he is now convinced, what kind of sigh is he envisioning? A self-satisfied sigh? A sigh of regret?
These are helpful questions to ask, not because they lead to clear answers but because they help bring to light the shift in tone that occurs here. First there is the word “shall.” This indicates not only a change of tense, but also a change of certainty. Previously he wanted to have it both ways, he was sorry he couldn’t, he hesitated, he acted almost on a whim, almost apologetically, telling himself he would maybe try the other road another time, albeit doubtfully. Now, although he has not arrived at any outcome, and does not appear to be very far past the fork in the road, he is already beginning to imagine his future autobiography. This here, my boys, is where it all began. Which is a satire on all of us, because we are all prone to misunderstanding and misrepresenting our own stories. Further evidence for the satire appears with the repetition of the pronoun I. Ever noticed how that repetition is mildly unsatisfying to recite aloud? Oh well, the structure demands it, so it must be written that way—thus might our unspoken judgment run. Wait a minute though. Is that how Robert Frost would approach it? Make a slight stylistic compromise just to get the poem wrapped up? Exactly what he had in mind, I cannot be sure. But if this poem and this stanza is perceived in the sense which I am suggesting, that repeated I becomes a signal, embellishing the inflated self-perception being performed by the narrator.
Distinguishing the narrator of the poem from the author of the poem is necessary here; in other words, appreciating that these lines are being created in the author’s imagination. No doubt the author has had plenty of experience ambling through yellow woods, and plenty of experience ambling through life, and he is drawing from these experiences to create images which will reach the reader’s imagination, but he is clearly not recounting a singular, literal event from his own life.
The narrator seems to be telling his own story wrong, as so many of us do, and is deploying incomplete self-knowledge. This is conveyed with the poet’s touch. If he had started the poem by saying that he was going to relate a scene from his bygone days from which he would draw some lessons about how we make decisions and how we talk about ourselves, it would have been a disaster, destined to utter abandonment in a swirling sea of wordiness and mediocrity. But he did not. He took the road less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
Daniel Hess lives with his wife and six children in a small German Baptist community in Idaho.
Artwork: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot 1796-1875 Basilica of Constantine