Luhut Sitompul ©

By Luhut Sitompul

The Road and The Hill

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and Sara Teasdale’s poem “The Long
Hill” have some similarities and differences. Both poems narrate regarding life, but in
telling this issue, each of the poem using different poetic techniques and images that
create different effects. In this essay I would like to make a comparing and contrasting
analysis of the two points using various features in poem, including speaker, audience,
purpose, rhyme, form, setting, subject and theme, figurative language, and imagery.
Both of the poems use the first-person as the speaker. In Teasdale’s it was the I
that traveled the Hill, as in Frost’s, it was the I that taken one of the two roads. And, both
authors creating a persona, where the author speaks in a voice very like themselves
except that they pretend more innocent, more earnest, and more pure than themselves.
The speakers do not have a specific audience for their words, thus we can say that the
words were meant to the general reader of the poems. There is also similarity in the
central purpose of both poems. They are used to present and express the author’s
remorse about what they have done in the previous time of their life.
Frost and Teasdale used end-rhyme in their poem. The rhyme in Frost’s is
abaab/abaab rhyme scheme; alliteration (fair, claim, wear, there, same—stanza 2).
While Teasdale used abab/abab rhyme scheme; alliteration (ago, down, know, gown—
stanza 1). In the form, appearance on the page, there is a difference between the
poems. On the page, The Road Not Taken looks regular—divided into regular stanzas
with relatively equal length. While The Long Hill is less regular—the words shaped
irregular pattern in length, when we rotate the page 90 0 to the left, it looks like the
author want to draw a hill with its ups and downs.
There is no information about the setting of place in both poems, perhaps
because the poems do not require a particular location. While there is a vivid
information about the temporal setting in the two poems. Equally, both are set in the
present time, with a flashback to the past.
The subject in the two poems is nearly the same. It is about life, at a time where
the speaker realizes that they have done a mistake in living their life (But the air was
dull, there was little I could have seen—in The Long Hill; I shall be telling this with a
Luhut Sitompul ©

sigh—in The Road Not Taken), but there is nothing can be done to undo the mistake.
However there is a clear difference in each of the poem’s theme. In Frost’s poem, the
remorse comes from the mistake in making a choice in life, that the speaker wishes
there is a second chance or some kind of time-machine to bring back time where it all
started (And that has made all the difference). But in Teasdale’s the speaker’s remorse
comes from living the life itself, there were no other options. Had there a time machine,
the speaker would not ever use it (But it’s no use now to think of turning back).
Symbol and personification are used for a number of time in both poems.
Examples of figurative language that we can find in Frost’s: road and yellow wood as a
symbol, which symbolized life and adulthood respectively. For the personification are
having (line 2, stanza 2), and wanted (line 3, stanza 2). In Teasdale’s, the symbol are
the hill, and brambles. The hill symbolized life, while brambles symbolized all things that
inhibit life. For the personification are catching (line 4, stanza 1), and wrapped (line 3,
stanza 2). As a whole, all the figurative language used by Frost and Teasdale are fit
perfectly, as I could not choose a more appropriate or a better one.
Imageries used in The Road Not Taken and The Long Hill can really give a
different mental picture to us about the subject. The Road Not Taken portrays life as
road. When there is a road there is a destination. What road we choose determine our
final destination (I doubted if I should ever come back) as what choices we made in our
past life lead our present and future. In The Long Hill, life is described as a hill and its
crest. The way to the crest is ascending, which means extra effort. But that is not all;
there are also brambles along the way. So life is about struggle, because it is not only
we must give extra effort for the ascending road, we also have to get beyond all the
obstacles.
By illustrating life as hill and its peak, Teasdale has shown us a deeper thought
about life than Frost’s diverging roads. Any way, if combine both, we actually have a
great guidance in living our life. Make your choice with caution, and stick to it. Though
the journey might not be pleasant or even a struggling one in the end you will reach
your destination.
Luhut Sitompul ©

The Long Hill

By Sara Teasdale

I must have passed the crest a while ago

And now I am going down—
Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know
But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.

All the morning I thought how proud I should be

To stand there straight as a queen
Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me—
But the air was dull, there was a little I could have seen.

It was nearly level along the beaten track

And the brambles caught in my gown—
But it’s no use now to think of turning back
The rest of the way will be only going down.

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

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 jus 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.