The Roads

The roads are the central symbol of the poem as they represent the choices one must face. In this case, the two roads offer the speaker the choice of which direction to travel, but more broadly they represent the options afforded to people throughout their lives. Frost uses the roads as a way to represent a larger question of whether our choices truly matter by dramatizing an experience with a seemingly small and mundane decision: which direction should the speaker walk? It is also important to note that the symbol of the two roads represents one's choices as relatively final, as one choice compounds another just like "way leads on to way" (14). It is for this reason that the speaker begins to doubt the solidity of his decision when he admits he "kept the first for another day" (13), but also "doubted if I should ever...