Discuss the theme of the poem "The Road Not Taken" written by Robert Frost.

The central theme of "The Road Not Taken" revolves around the significance of human choice. Through its tone, language, and structure, the poem is able to offer multiple understandings of what it means to choose. The first interpretation of choice offered by the poem is that it is largely significant in determining how one's life will unfold. This reading is bolstered by the symbol and idea of the "road not taken" or of the uncommon choice. Here, the uncommon choice is the one that, the speaker imagines, has affected him many years down the line. When he says "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference" (19-20), he attributes to this choice a weight and importance so large that he would remember it long after it occurred. This reading is one that often leads to readers interpreting the poem as a rather optimistic one, seeing Frost's representation of even very small choices as those that have the power to alter the course of one's life entirely.

But there are many other indications throughout the poem that the choice the speaker makes does not necessarily alter his life for the better. Instead, he notes that his future self will be telling this story "with a sigh" (16), which could imply disappointment or even regret. Further, the final line, "And that has made all the difference" (20), is intentionally vague as it does not describe what kind of difference this choice fostered at this (fictional) point in the future. Readers are also not provided with any context for this fictional future: we do not know where the speaker is, to whom he is speaking, or to what extent his life has changed since the occurrence in the woods. Instead, we are told very simply that the choice to take one road over another has made "all the difference" (20). Due to the obfuscation of context, the representation of choice becomes less straightforward and the poem suggests that, while choice still holds great power, we must also be aware that the "difference" described in the poem is not necessarily cause for celebration.

A third reading of how choice is addressed in the poem is a bit broader, and it focuses not on whether the differences spawned by choices are "good" or "bad" but whether they matter at all. Frost presents the reader with the choice to take the road less traveled but continually undermines the assertion that it was, indeed, the uncommon road. By the end of the poem, readers may be questioning the reliability of the speaker altogether. Furthermore, the fact that the final stanza is an imagined scenario rife with dramatic imagery and language suggests that it is actually unlikely to happen; there will not be a point in the speaker's life when he reflects on this experience in the woods and attributes "all the difference" to which path he decided to take. In this way, the poem reads less as an endorsement of particular choices and more as a contemplation over the weight people tend to attribute to choices at all. Frost instead suggests that choices are made without thinking, and while they may lead us down different paths, it is impossible to be aware of which direction we are going and even more impossible to be in control of it.