ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Literary Topics Videos 221 videos
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Dr. Seuss was a failure to start, but he soon learned to follow his heart. He wrote books about things that he knew, and soon enough, his book sale...
Sure, Edgar Allan Poe was dark and moody and filled with teenage angst, but what else does he have in common with the Twilight series?
The Road Not Taken 29610 Views
Share It!
Description:
Indecision may or may not be this man's biggest problem. All he can do is go left or right. It's not that big of a deal...or is it?
Transcript
- 00:04
The Road Not Taken, a la Shmoop. A man is traveling in the woods when he comes
- 00:10
across a fork in the road…
- 00:12
One way looks nice and grassy…
- 00:14
…but so does the other.
- 00:15
What does he do? Most high school valedictorians will tell
Full Transcript
- 00:19
you that Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken is about exploring new trails
- 00:23
and challenging ourselves.
- 00:24
But is that guy in the woods really such a trailblazer?
- 00:29
He looks at one road, and it looks great…
- 00:32
…then he looks at the other, and it also looks pretty good…
- 00:37
…and he wishes he could just do both…
- 00:39
...and it takes him about two and a half stanzas to decide that they’re… really about the
- 00:45
same…
- 00:45
…so if the roads aren’t all that different, and he doesn’t feel that great about his
- 00:50
choice… what’s this poem actually about?
- 00:53
The value of being… wishy-washy?
- 00:54
All right, you’ve probably got something in common with that guy who just can’t decide
- 00:59
what to do.
- 01:00
What are your roads?
- 01:02
Maybe you’re deciding between colleges…
- 01:04
You can go to a small private liberal arts school, with tiny class sizes and long class
- 01:09
discussions…
- 01:09
…where you see everyone you know on a daily basis, and live a short walk from all your
- 01:13
friends …
- 01:14
…or you can go to a big school, have a ton of majors and classes to choose from…
- 01:19
…and be able to stand out when you want… or hide in the crowd.
- 01:25
Maybe that’s why Robert Frost’s speaker heaves a big ol’ sigh and just takes one
- 01:29
of the roads already…
- 01:29
…and then spends the rest of the poem thinking about how he could have taken the other.
- 01:34
So is this poem really about taking the path… less traveled… and never looking back?
- 01:40
Maybe it’s more about how hard it is to make a decision…
- 01:43
…but you still have to… ‘cause in life, you can’t do it all.
- 01:47
And it’s not like taking the road less traveled has made all the difference in a good way…
- 01:52
…it’s just that the speaker knows that if he had taken the other path, it would have
- 01:55
been a completely different experience…
- 01:57
…and it’s kind of a bummer that he can’t do both.
- 01:59
What do you think?
- 02:00
Is this poem about going after your dreams?
- 02:03
Or about not regretting your decisions?
- 02:05
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Related Videos
This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...
We may all be fools when it comes to love, but thankfully none of us will accidentally switch places with our twin brother and fall in love with ou...
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.