Symbol & Allegory The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yello

n Symbol & Allegory
n The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
n A symbol may be roughly defined as something that means more than what it
is. “The Road Not Taken,” for instance, concerns a choice made between two
roads by a person out walking in the woods.
n He would like to explore both. He tells himself that he will explore one and
come back to the other later, but he knows that he will probably be unable to
do so.

n By the last stanza, however, we realize that the poem is about something
more than the choice of paths in a wood, for that choice would be relatively
unimportant.
n This poem is about a critical life-­‐altering choice.
n Why a road?
n We must interpret the poet’s choice of a road as a symbol for any choice in
life between alternatives that appear almost equally attractive but will result
through the years in a large difference in the kind of experience one knows.
n Image, metaphor, and symbol shade into each other and are sometimes
difficult to distinguish.
n Here’s an easy-­‐to-­‐follow breakdown:
n In general, an image means only what it is.
n The figurative term in a metaphor means something other than what it is.
n And a symbol means what it is and something more, too.
n A symbol functions literally and figuratively at the same time.
n If I say that a shaggy brown dog was rubbing its back against a white picket
fence, I am talking about nothing more than a dog (and a picket fence) and
am therefore presenting an image.
n If I say, “Some dirty dog stole my wallet at the party,” I am not talking about a
dog at all and am therefore using a metaphor.
n BUT if I say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” I am talking not only
about dogs but about living creatures of any species and am therefore
speaking symbolically.
n Images do not cease to be images when they become incorporated in
metaphors or symbols. We simply use the term most relevant to the aspect
of the poem we are discussing.
n If we’re discussing the sensuous qualities of “The Road Not Taken,” we would
refer to the two leaf-­‐strewn roads as an image.
n If we are discussing the significance of the poem, we will talk about the roads
as symbols.
n The symbol is usually so general in its meaning that it can suggest a great
variety of specific meanings.

n “The Road Not Taken” concerns a choice in life, but what choice? Was it a
choice of profession? A choice of residence? A choice of mate? It could be all
or none…
n We cannot definitively answer this question, and it is not important that we
do so.
n It is enough if we see in the poem an expression of regret that the
possibilities of life experience are so sharply limited.
n Because the symbol is a rich one, other meanings are also suggested.
n It affirms a belief in the possibility of choice (as opposed to fate) and says
something about the nature of choice – how each choice narrows the range of
possible future choices, so that we make our lives as we go, both freely
choosing and being determined by past choices.
n Though not a philosophical poem, it comments on the issue of free will and
indicates the poet’s own position. It can do all these things, concretely and
compactly, by its use of an effective symbol.
n Consider the following poem…
n The Sick Rose
Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy
William Blake (1757-­‐1827)
1. What figures of speech do you find in the poem in addition to symbol? How
do they contribute to its force or meaning?
2. Can you think of and explain a symbolic interpretation of the poem?
n The rose, apostrophized and personified in the first line, has traditionally
been a symbol feminine beauty and love, as well as of sensual pleasures.

n “Bed” can refer to woman’s bed as well as to a flower bed.
n “Crimson joy” suggests the pleasure of passionate lovemaking, as well as the
brilliant beauty of a red flower.
n The “dark secret of love” of the “invisible worm” is more strongly suggestive
of a concealed or illicit love affair than of the feeding of a cankerworm on a
plant, though it fits that too.
n For all these reasons, the rose almost immediately suggests a woman and the
worm her secret lover – and the poem suggests the corruption of innocent
but physical love by concealment and deceit.
n The worm is a common symbol or metonymy for death, and fans of Jon
Milton (like Blake) would recall the “undying worm” of Paradise Lost,
Milton’s metaphor for the snake that tempted Eve.
n Are other interpretations possible?
n Yes.
n “The Sick Rose” has been interpreted as referring to the destruction of love
by jealousy, deceit, or the possessive instinct; of innocence by experience; of
imagination and joy by analytic reason; of life by death.
n We cannot say for sure what the poet had in mind, nor do we need to.
n A symbol defines an area of meaning, and any interpretation that falls within
that area is permissible.
n In Blake’s poem, the rose stands for something beautiful, or desirable, or
good.
n The worm stands for some corrupting agent.
n Within these limits, the meaning is largely “open.”
n For instance, the poem may remind some of a gifted friend whose promise
and potential have been destroyed by drug addiction.
n Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)

What emotional responses are evoked by the imagery?
On the literal level, what does this poem present?
-­‐a writer who interrupts himself to have a look at his
digging in a flower garden below his window. He is
reminded of his father twenty years earlier, and by that
memory is drawn farther back to his grandfather
digging peat from a bog for fuel.
n What clues us in to the idea that there is more going on than meets the eye?
n The title and the emphasis on varieties of the same task carried out in several
different ways over a span of generations alert the reader to the need to
discover the further significance of this literal statement.
n The last line is metaphorical, comparing digging to writing.
n Is it also symbolic?
n No, because on a literal level, one cannot dig with a pen.
n The symbolism comes from the act of digging itself.
n Digging has meanings that relate to basic needs – for warmth, for
sustenance, for beauty, and for the personal satisfaction of doing a job
well.
n In the concluding metaphor, one basic need is implied, the need to remember
and confront one’s origins, to find oneself in a continuum of meaningful
activities, to assert the relevance and importance of one’s vocation.
n Meanings ray out from a symbol, like the corona around the sun or like
connotations around a richly suggestive word.
n However, we must use tact and careful judgment when interpreting symbols.
n Although Blake’s “The Sick Rose” might remind us of drug addiction, it would
be unwise to say that Blake uses the rose to symbolize this.
n This interpretation is private and narrow. The poem allows it, but does not
itself suggest it.
n Just because a symbol is “open,” we cannot make it say anything we choose.
We have to stay within the range of the text.

n To interpret “The Road Not Taken” as a choice between good and evil is to
impose meaning that is simply not there.
n The poem tells us that the roads are much alike and lie “in leaves no step had
trodden black.”
n Whatever the choice may be, it is one between two goods.
n The reader who reads into such a poem anything imaginable might as well
discard the poem and simply daydream.
n Avoid symbol-­‐hunting. It is better to miss a symbol or two than to attempt to
find one in every line of a poem.
n Lastly, an allegory is a narrative or description that has a second meaning
beneath the surface.
n Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the
author’s major interest is in the ulterior meaning.
n Examples of allegories:
n Lord of the Flies
n Animal Farm
n The Matrix
n V for Vendetta
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