The Symbolism Of The Journey

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The Symbolism of the Journey Using symbolism in a short story or poem helps the reader to understand the author’s purpose behind the writing. I will review the poem, “The Road Not Taken” and two short stories; “A Worn Path” and “Used to Live Here Once”. I will show how, through symbolism, the journey is not necessarily the trip from the starting point to the ending point. While analyzing the readings using the archetypal approach, you can see the journeys the characters take are more of a journey through life. The very first line in “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (as cited by Clugston, 2010). Right away I notice the color “yellow”. According to Journey into Literature, yellow means the approach of decay or aging (as cited in Clugston, 2010). The fact that there are two roads, a fork in the road, reminds me of how many choices we have in life. Which path is the right one? While the man looks down both paths, he notices one is grassier than the other, but both had leaves on them, so no one had been by that day. Since he was the first to come upon the two roads, he did not have anyone to follow, so the choice was completely up to him. The alliteration of the line “Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (as cited in Clugston 2010) brings the focus on that path, so the reader is already thinking he will chose the grassier road. According to Thoreau’s Color Symbols, grass and green mean birth and growth (as cited in Coyler, 1971) once growth and birth are recognized, a sure sign of spring, I am lead to believe that main character wants to have a new beginning in life; and that is why he did indeed chose the grassier path. “I shall be telling this with a sigh” (as cited in Clugston, 2010) that “sigh” has been a source of some scrutiny. In 1924, Frost wrote a letter responding to a child’s question

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