Monday, March 10, 2014

Do you think the road the speaker took was really the less travelled one? Why?

No, the road the speaker takes is not really the less traveled one, because, according to the second and third stanzas, there is no road less traveled; they have both been traveled by relatively equal numbers of people.  The speaker says that the second road is "just as fair" as the first road, it just happens to be grassier; however, "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same" (lines 6, 9-10).  The passing there refers to people who have taken these roads before, and, since the roads are worn about the same, we can ascertain that about the same number of people have taken each one.  The roads may look a bit different, but they are equally worn.  In fact, the speaker says that "both that morning equally lay," strewn with leaves that had not yet been trodden black by the steps of others (11).  Therefore, there is no road less traveled because both roads have been taken an approximately equal number of times. 

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