The Road Not Taken: The American Dream in Context.

"The Road Not Taken": The American Dream in Context
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"The Road Not Taken": The American Dream in Context
"The Road Not Taken" (Frost, n.d.) is a classic about choices. The poem initially intended as a joke by Frost has changed meanings over the years and is now an iconic piece in American repertoire about individualism, choice, and freedom. The scene in "The Road Not Taken" is fairly simple: a forked path a traveler needs to decide from which way to go. Taken at face value, such a scene is, simply, every traveler's dilemma. That is, for a good many travelers paths, or roads might fork out, leaving travelers wondering about which best, if not safest, way to take. At a different level of analysis, "The Road Not Taken" is, just as Frost's initial joke has been misunderstood, about choices every man makes in life. The perplexity of the poem's traveler is, according to such interpretation, every man's deliberating process to opt-in or out from available choices. Framed as such, "The Road Not Taken" can be understood, in an American context, as conscious choices individuals make in pursuit of happiness. The American Dream metaphor serves, moreover, as a vehicle to understand choices, even missteps (and confusions), individuals undergo to reach some destination or achieve some goal. Thematically, "The Road Not Taken" is an American statement on personal choice, dilemmas experienced making a choice, and final resolutions. The road to an American Dream is, accordingly, one set by dilemmas, and to press ahead, one needs not only to dream yet also to work on such a dream. The question of choice is, as shown in the current course, a question echoing deep and far in the American Dream. This is shown not only in "The Road Not Taken" yet also in a diversity of works, fictional and historical, visiting recurring issues of choice, dilemma, and resolution. To put matters into perspective, a closer examination is required of "The Road Not Taken" as one most representative work of any American Dream. To do so, "The Road Not Taken" (re)interpreted
using select works including, for current purposes, "American Dream" (MKTO, n.d.), "Over the Rainbow" (Garland, n.d.), and The Declaration of Independence ("Declaration of independence: A transcription," 1776). This reflection essay aims, accordingly, to examine "The Road Not Taken" in a context of select course texts including "American Dream," "Over the Rainbow," and The Declaration of Independence in order to identify issues, if any, arising from so-called "American Dream."
"The Road Not Taken" is, as noted, a statement on personal choice, associated dilemmas, and final resolutions. The poem, starting with a traveler's apparent dilemma to choose a path, engages listeners (readers) in a journey not only about ways to choose but also about self-discovery. The thinking processes poem speaker undergoes ideally framed as a dilemma of choice expressed as follows:
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. (Frost)
In the poem's traveler's eyes – and, perhaps, for every traveler – different...