He speaks of a place where the grass grows white. Clearly this is inferred as a figment of Shel’s imagination, a fairy tale land, so to speak. The place that Shel is talking about is childhood. In the second stanza he tells us to “leave the place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends.” He is relating to the world that adults are in, showing how far off it is from the lives of children. In order to find the real meaning in this poem, you must not interpret in a literal sense.
2008 AP LIT FREE RESPONSE: Section II, Question One In both poems “When I Have Fears” by John Keats, and “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both narrators expose their unfulfilled aspirations with the underlying fear that death will soon approach. Keats explains how his career as a famous, credited author has not yet been fulfilled, and fears that he will not live long enough to do so. Conversely, Longfellow looks back on his past slightly disappointed, but assured that he has the latter half of his life to accomplish his objectives and goals. Longfellow is dismal and terrified of death, while Keats comes to realize that his dreams are infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, and any life lived is a gift that will eventually succumb to death. Keats’ poem is one extensive run-on sentence that truly “runs” across the page.
Frost was extremely emphatic on the simplicity of this poem, both in meaning and format. The poem can be seen to be about many things, but without argument one can say that it is about someone who has come to a fork in the road. This can be seen in the first two lines. The speaker acknowledges that he “could not travel both” as he attempts to peer down the road as far as possible to see what it will be like but it disappears in the horizon “where it bent in the undergrowth”(line 5). The speaker considers each road and comes to the conclusion that “the passing there/had worn them really out the same” (line 9/10).
Each literary piece contained a main character that faced a situation where they were at odds with an inner struggle. In the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost the conflict is about the speaker reflecting on a "crossroads" in their life. Having made an important, life-changing decision on which way to venture, it is obvious that he had the opportunity to experience two choices, neither which had many people taking either path, but one path was much less traveled than the other. “And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.” (DiYanni, 2007, p.808). When the speaker made his Inner Conflicts 3 choice, and began traveling down his chosen road in life, he assured himself he would someday come back and travel the other road as well.
‘Please. You can’t you have to carry the fire… ‘I can’t just take me with you papa. I can’t.”(McCarthy, 278). The intent in writing this paper was to set the mood and tone to that of a dark state and bring the audience into the book and make them feel the pain that the boy is feeling. The tone after reading this passage comes out as a dark and depressing one in which you feel for the boy and know that he is having a hard time with his father’s death.
One of the first things that stood out to me when looking at the poem was how metaphorical the poem is to life’s path. The title “Traveling through the Dark,” comes across to me as a metaphor of the long dark road of life that is often filled with difficulty and tough decisions. As one grows older, they are forced to start making decisions for themselves. They have very little experience with decision making, because their parents have always made major decisions for them. However, there comes a day that one must take control and independently make decision for themselves.
FreeWriting In the article, “FreeWriting”, Mr. Elbow states,” next time you write, notice how often you stop yourself from writing down something you were gonna write down. Or else cross out what’s been written. “Naturally” you say, “it wasn’t any good”. I can definitely relate to the view Peter Elbow takes in his article. Starting an assignment is always the hardest step for me .Like in the very beginning, when you are digging for words to tie your point together; it’s always a struggle building that creative momentum.
Enlisting in the war would help him feel more secure about where he stands at that point in his life. Since the war symbolizes the coming of age, Gene is looking for who he is ties in perfectly with this theme. In the novel the passage beginning with “To enlist. To slam the door…” (Knowles 100) is when Gene finally realizes that he is insecure about whom he is and that he just wants to be someone else because he’s just not comfortable being in his own skin. This relates to the theme of coming of age because Gene towards the end of the book finally decides to enlist in the war with Brinker Hadley and he finds himself with the war and that’s why the war symbolizes Gene growing as a person in this novel.
He also twists in some tricky order of word use to make it difficult to read through without having to stop and re-read a line. To me, his imagery portrays the perfect procession into the woods on a beautiful autumn day. The use of the adjective yellow really makes the entire poem for me. There are many interpretations of what the poem actually means. Some feel that the sigh near the end is a sigh of relief because choosing the path less taken made all the difference in a positive way.
If we want an example of how this is so, we first need to look at the title. instead of saying "The Road Taken", he says "The Road Not Taken". This implies that instead of focussing on the road he did take, he is somewhat 'haunted' by the road the he did not take, and the wrong choice he made. As we move into the poem, we see that the Frost says that he is "sorry I could not travel both", showing that is conflicted, and that both of the paths have appeal. He goes on to say that he "looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth".