In this “Image With A Message” assignment, I decided on one of the most popular quotes from one of my favorite poets. With choosing a Robert Frost quote, I knew that I needed to find an image that represented my favorite poem written by him- “The Road Not Taken”.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a poetry nerd. If I really enjoyed a poem enough, I would memorize it and take any opportunity to recite it to anyone who would listen. Robert Frosts’ The Road Not Taken was one of them, and I was extremely proud of myself for retaining those stanzas in my head for years. Given that, I still quote this poem whenever I am taking a walk through a forest, or if I encounter two divergent paths.

With this image that I have chosen, I interpreted it to be the path that the speaker in Frosts’ poem takes. Since the poem is a bit of an extended metaphor for life, it made sense that this quote was the one I would choose. As his poem ends:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Although a slightly different theme from his quote, both the former and the latter quotes speak about one’s life decisions. In the poem, the speaker notes that taking the path less traveled has made all the difference in his life. In the quote I pulled out for the image, Frost sums up life in the words “it goes on”. No matter what decisions or mistakes we make in our lives, life will indeed go on.

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