"The Road Not Taken" and "Mother to Son" are both parables meant to teach lessons already learned by the experienced narrators. They are meant to teach the lesson that life is precious and once a decision is made it cannot be taken back. Therefore, make decisions careful because they will steer the course of your life.
Also, both poems are narrated by a single person, implying that the choices that they have made and the hardships they have endured have been alone. This implies a strength and individuality from either narrator.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a lyrical poem about the decisions that one must make in life. When a man approaches a fork in the road on which he is traveling, he must choose which path to take.
Robert Frost, American poet
English: Handwritten version of 'Happiness makes u...
English: The stone covering Robert Frost's family ...The choice that he makes, as with any choices made in life, affects him in a way that "has made all the difference." Thematically, the poem argues that no matter how small a decision is, that decision will affect a person's life forever.
Frost uses the images presented in the poem in a very involved and general way. The paths and the fork no longer refer to their definitions, but instead as keywords in a description of life. Through the poem, Frost is defining life as a series of decisions. Some of these decisions may, at the time, be thought of as insignificant, while others could be thought of as very significant. Frost argues that a decision's significance at the time is not really important, for any choice will change one's life. Every day, people, including the narrator of the poem, are...