Thursday, June 25, 2015

What are some good examples of thesis statements for an essay based on Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken"?

Here's one possible thesis statement: Frost shows, in his poem "The Road Not Taken," that there is no road less traveled, that it is ultimately impossible to make a totally unique choice, because others have always made each choice available to us many times before.  He says that the second road is "just as fair" as the first, though it is somewhat grassier.  However, "as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same."  In other words, about the same number of people have taken each of these roads and so they are equally worn, even if they are different in appearance.  Further, both of them "that morning equally lay," and so his choice of which road to take, i.e. which choice to make in the symbolism of the poem, is relatively arbitrary and based on little else besides first impression.


Another possible thesis: The speaker in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" plans to lie later on in his life, telling people that he took the road that fewer people had taken, because all humans want to believe that they make unique choices that have significant impact on our lives; however, the poem shows that such choices are ultimately unavailable to us.  To defend this thesis, you can rely on much the same evidence as above.  However, the narrator's plan to tell people that the road he chose, i.e. the decision he made, "made all the difference" in his life, explains why he will tell this story "with a sigh."  It is a falsehood, and whether he tells it for his own sake or his auditors' is unclear.  Perhaps it is for both, because it seems like human nature to feel that we've made important decisions that really have made a difference in the courses our lives take, although the poem does not support this as a possible reality.

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