Distinguishing Different Perspectives

Distinguishing Different Perspectives is a skill that helps you understand how different people understand a person, a situation or an event differently. They can look at the same thing but see it in another way.

Robert Frost himself referred to The Road Not Taken as a "tricky, very tricky" poem.

Understanding of the poem depends on the perspective through which you interpret the word "sigh". Explain the meaning in the poem of these two possible perspectives:

1. Sigh = sigh of contentment
2. Sigh= sigh of regret

Which perspective do you think the speaker meant? Why?

The speaker says he took the road that "wanted wear" (line 8) and that was "less traveled by" (line 19).

1. What kind of perspective on life might this traveler have?

2. What kind of perspective on life might make someone prefer the road that the poet didn't take?