Thursday 5 April 2018
NCERT Questions and Answers are given after text explanation
Line 1
Two roads
diverged in a yellow wood,
Our speaker is describing a fork in the road. This
poem was first published in 1916, when cars were only just beginning to become
prominent, so these roads in the wood are probably more like paths, not roads like
we'd think of them today.
The woods are yellow, which means that it's probably
fall and the leaves are turning colors.
"Diverged" is just another word for split.
There's a fork in the road.
Lines 2-3
And sorry I
could not travel both
And be one
traveler, long I stood
The speaker wants to go down both roads at once, but
since it's impossible to walk down two roads at once, he has to choose one
road.
The speaker is "sorry" he can't travel both
roads, suggesting regret.
Because of the impossibility of traveling both roads,
the speaker stands there trying to choose which path he's going to take.
Because he's standing, we know that he's on foot, and not in a carriage or a
car.
Lines 4-5
And looked down
one as far as I could
To where it
bent in the undergrowth;
The speaker really wants to go down both paths – he's
thinking hard about his choice. He's staring down one road, trying to see where
it goes. But he can only see up to the first bend, where the undergrowth, the
small plants and greenery of the woods, blocks his view.
This is where we start to think about the metaphorical
meanings of this poem. If our speaker is, as we suspect, at a fork in the road
of his life, and not at an actual road, he could be trying to peer into his
future as far as he can. But, since he can't really predict the future, he can
only see part of the path. Who knows what surprises it could hold?
Line 6
Then took the
other, as just as fair,
So after all this buildup about one road, which he's
looked down for a long time, our speaker takes the other path.
Then we get a tricky little phrase to describe this
road. It's "as just as fair." Read without the first "as,"
this phrase is clear, if you think of fair as meaning attractive, or pretty.
But the first "as" makes the phrase a little more difficult.
Combining the words "just" and "fair" in the same phrase is
a play on words – both of these words have multiple meanings. The phrase could
mean something like "as just as it is fair," as in proper, righteous,
and equal. But this doesn't quite apply to a road.
Yet we trust that our speaker wouldn't let things get
awkward without meaning it. We're guessing that he means the road is just as
pretty, but that in the metaphorical world of this poem, he thinks he made the
fair, or right, choice.
But it's not fairer – it's just as fair. So he was
choosing between two roads, or futures, that were different but potentially
equally good.
Lines 7-8
And having
perhaps the better claim,
Because it was
grassy and wanted wear;
The speaker still seems pretty uncertain when he
explains that this second path is better. It is only "perhaps"
better.
Then the speaker tells us why the path is better – it
seems like it hasn't been walked on very much, because it's grassy and doesn't
look worn.
Be careful not to think that the phrase "wanted
wear" is personification (it is alliteration, though). "Wanted,"
in this instance, means something more like "lacked."
Lines 9-10
Though as for
that the passing there
Had worn them
really about the same,
The speaker of this poem really can't seem to make up
his mind! Just when we think we've got a declaration about which path is
better, he changes his mind and admits that maybe they were equal after all.
The "as for that" refers to the path being
less worn.
"The passing there" refers to traffic,
probably on foot just like our speaker, that may have worn the paths down.
Lines 11-12
And both that
morning equally lay
In leaves no
step had trodden black.
Here, again, we hear that the paths are equal, but we
find out something new, that it's morning. It's possible that our speaker is
the first to travel to this place on that day.
The paths are covered with leaves, which haven't been
turned black by steps crushing them.
Wait, we thought one path was grassy…and now it's
covered with leaves. Possibly, the leaves aren't very thick, or the grass
sticks up in between them. Or maybe the speaker isn't being quite honest.
Line 13
Oh, I kept the
first for another day!
The speaker seems like he's already regretting his
decision. He is rationalizing his choice of path by saying he'll come back to
the one he missed later.
This is a familiar way to deal with difficult choices;
"you can always come back and try it again later," we think.
With an "Oh" at the beginning and an
exclamation point at the end, this line is emphatic. The speaker feels strongly
about what he's saying here.
Lines 14-15
Yet knowing how
way leads on to way,
I doubted if I
should ever come back.
The speaker realizes that his hopes to come back and
try the other path may be foolish.
He knows how "way leads on to way" – how one
road can lead to another, and then another, until you end up very far from
where you started. Because of this, he doesn't think he'll ever be able to come
back and take that other path, as much as he wishes he could.
Here we return to the metaphorical meaning of this
poem. In any life decision, we can hedge our bets by thinking we can always
come back, try a different option later. But sometimes our decisions take us to
other decisions, and yet still others, and it's impossible for us to retrace
our steps and arrive back at that original decision.
It's like deciding which college to go to – "I
can always transfer" a high school senior might think. But then, once the
decision is made and freshman year has passed, the reality hits that switching
schools is a lot more complicated than it seems, and it's hard to start
completely over somewhere else.
Lines 16-17
I shall be
telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages
and ages hence:
Now we jump forward in time. We don't know exactly
when, but we know that it's ages and ages "hence," or, from now. So
we're probably talking years, not months.
We know that this story is important, because the
speaker will still be telling it many years later.
He'll be telling it with a sigh, though, which is
interesting because sighs can be happy, sad, or merely reflective – and we
don't know what kind of sigh this is.
So, we know that this choice is probably going to be
important for the speaker's future, but we don't know if he's going to be happy
about it or not.
Line 18
Two roads
diverged in a wood, and I—
This line is a repetition of the first line of the
poem, with the subtraction of the word "yellow" and the addition of
the words "and I."
This repetition helps to bring the poem to a
conclusion. It reminds us what's important in the poem – the concept of
choosing between two different paths.
Then, we get the hesitation of "and I" and
the dash. This lets us know that whatever the speaker is about to say next is
important.
Line 19
I took the one
less traveled by,
In this line, the speaker sums up his story and tells
us that he took the road less traveled by. With the hesitation in the line
before, this declaration could be triumphant – or regretful.
Also, remember it wasn't exactly clear that the road
our speaker took was the one that was less traveled. He said at first that it
looked less worn, but then that the two roads were actually about equal.
Before you start getting mad at our speaker for
stretching the truth, remember that he's telling his story far in the future, a
long time from when it actually happened. He's predicting that his memory will
tell him that he took the road less traveled by, or that he'll lie in the
future, no matter what the reality of the situation was.
Line 20
And that has
made all the difference.
At first glance it seems that this line is triumphant
– the narrator took the path that no one else did, and that is what has made
the difference in his life that made him successful.
But he doesn't say that it made him successful – an
optimistic reader wants the line to read positively, but it could be read
either way. A "difference" could mean success, or utter failure.
Remember, the speaker is telling us about what he's
going to say in the future. From where he is now, just looking down the path as
far as he can see, he can't tell if the future that it leads him to is going to
be good or bad. He just knows that his choice is important – that it will make
all the difference in his life.
The speaker of this poem could be saying that his
choice made all the difference while he's surrounded by his grandchildren, by a
fire in a cozy little house. Or he could be saying it to the wind, while
walking alone on the streets. At this point, he doesn't know – and neither do we.
Rhyming
Quintains of Iambic Tetrameter
This poem has a pretty complicated form. We'll start
with the (relatively) simple stuff. The poem consists of four stanzas with five
lines each. These are called quintains. And in each quintain, the rhyme scheme is
ABAAB. For example, take the first stanza:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, (A)
And sorry I could not travel both (B)
And be one traveler, long I stood (A)
And looked down one as far as I could (A)
To where it bent in the undergrowth; (B)
The rhythm of the poem is a bit trickier. It is
basically iambic, which means that there is one unstressed syllable followed by
a stressed syllable (da DUM). There are many variations in this poem, most of
which are anapestic, which means that there are two unstressed syllables
followed by a stressed syllable (da da DUM).
The most common use of iambs in poetry is in
pentameter, which means that there are five "feet," or units of
stressed and unstressed syllables, in the poem. But this poem is in iambic
tetrameter, which means that there are only four feet (tetra = four). If you
read the poem aloud, you should be able to hear four distinct beats per line.
It will sound roughly like this: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM.
Let's look at the first line as an example. Stressed syllables
are in bold and italic.
Two roads | diverged | in a yell|ow wood
Each of the four feet in this line is iambic except
for the third, because both "in" and "a" are unstressed
syllables, making it an anapest.
So this poem has a rhythm and rhyme scheme, but they
depart a little from the norm, just like the speaker of this poem, who chooses
his own path.
Thinking about the poem : Solutions of Questions on Page Number : 16
Q1.Where
does the traveler find himself? What problem does he face?
The traveller finds himself at a forked road
while travelling in a yellow wood. He faces the problem of choosing between the
two roads as he could not travel both at the same time.
2. Discuss
what these phrases mean to you.
(i) A yellow wood
(ii) It was grassy and wanted wear
(iii) The passing there
(iv) Leaves no step had trodden black
(v) How way leads on to way
2.(i) The phrase 'a yellow wood' signifies
the autumnal setting of the poem.
(ii) The grass on the road that the poet
decides to take was still afresh and the road seemed less worn out. This
implies that not many people had walked on it.
(iii)This refers to the people passing
through that road.
(iv) This means that there were no footmarks
on the leaves strewn on the paths since nobody had walked on them.
(v) Here, the poet refers to the fact that
one road always leads on to another and so on.
3. Is
there any difference between the two roads as the poet describes them.
(i) in stanzas two and three?
(ii) in the last two lines of the poem?
3. (i) In stanzas two and three, the poet,
vaguely expresses the similarities but at the same time, tries to determine the
differences between the two roads. He says that although the second road seemed
'just as fair' and almost as same worn-out as the first yet it was somehow the
'better claim' since it was still afresh and less-trodden. That morning, both
the roads were equally strewn with leaves that had not yet been trampled by the
travellers.
(ii) According to the last two lines of the
poem, one of the two road was 'less travelled by' than the other and the poet's
decision to walk on this road made all the difference in his life.
4. What
do you think the last two lines of the poem mean? (Looking back, does the poet
regret his choice or accept it?)
Ans: In the last two lines, the poet says that he
chose the less-trodden road and that this choice made all the difference in his
life. Whether he regrets his choice or accepts it is ambiguous. The poet uses
word 'difference', which does not clarify the implication, whether good or bad.
However, the word 'sigh' suggests that the decision was possibly more of regret
than satisfaction.
QII. 1.
Have you ever had to make a difficult choice (or do you think you will have
difficult choices to make)? How will you make the choice (for what decisions)?
Ans: No, I have never been in a situation in which
I had to make a difficult choice. But I think the time will come when I will
have to choose a stream, among science, commerce and humanities, after tenth
grade. This decision will be a crucial one as it will determine my career
prospects in future. I will make this decision on the basis of my interests as
well as my aspirations and future goals in life.
(A model
answer has been provided for students' reference. It is strongly recommended
that students prepare the answer based on their own experience and
understanding.)
2. After
you have made a choice do you always think about what might have been, or do
you accept the reality?
Answer :
Having
made a choice, I accept the reality. Reconsidering a decision or contemplating
over it is not a positive approach towards life. Such thoughts never allow us
to be happy with what we have gained from our decision. Therefore, I believe in
sticking to my decisions.
(A model answer has been provided for
students' reference. It is strongly recommended that students prepare the
answer based on their own experience and understanding.)
