Metaphors of Life in Literature

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Table of Contents

Textual Analysis
Conclusion
References

It is a common notion for many authors to explore life in their writing. While some authors do it by creating a complex plot to show character development and growth, others use linguistic styles and features to illustrate life metaphorically. The three texts from the course that provide a metaphorical view of life are The Road Not Taken by Robert Lee Frost, Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood, and The Lover Not Taken by Blanche Farley. Although the three works are different in terms of their structure, style, and purpose, they all seem to highlight that the journey of life is more important than its components, such as choices or the ending. The present paper will seek to analyze how each text represents life metaphorically and compare the interpretations of the works.

Textual Analysis

The Road Not Taken

The first author, Robert Lee Frost, was an American poet and playwright who is particularly famous for his depictions of ordinary people and life in New England. His poetry focuses on life as it is, providing realistic illustrations of people’s behaviors and actions. The Road Not Taken deviates from the author’s realistic style because of its metaphorical meaning and the focus on the narrator’s inner thoughts. In this work, Frost emphasizes people’s preoccupation with making choices and how it influences their future life. The poem also questions the reasons for people’s decisions, and whether or not there is a correct path to choose in life.

The poem begins with the narrator standing in the forest and facing two separate roads (Frost, n.d., para. 1):

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;

The first stanza highlights some important concepts that are also evident in the rest of the poem. Firstly, the author stresses the irreversible nature of choices made by people: “I could not travel both” (Frost, n.d., para. 1). Secondly, the author also reflects indecisiveness by stating, “long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could” (Frost, n.d., para. 1). The fact that both of these concepts are introduced at the very beginning of the poem allows suggesting that the author sees a cause-and-effect relationship between them. In other words, to Frost, it is the irreversibility of each decision that makes it hard for a person to choose their path in life.

Surprisingly, the second stanza of the poem shows the speaker making a choice rather quickly and without extensive pondering: “Then took the other, as just as fair” (Frost, n.d., para. 2). At this point, the authors’ argument that people should make choices without hesitation becomes clear. Nevertheless, the notion of irreversibility remains unaddressed here, making the audience wonder how can one make easy decisions knowing that there is no way to change them.

The poet returns to this idea in the third stanza: “Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/ I doubted if I should ever come back” (Frost, n.d., para. 3). The author does not extend the idea of doubt any further, and the reason for this becomes apparent when considering the notion of irreversibility. According to Frost, there is no point in doubting because going back and changing the decision is not possible. For the same reason, people should make choices without hesitation since they can never know if the other choice would be better or worse. To Frost, contemplating which path to take is a pointless process, and the only factor that has impacted the speaker’s decision was the unwillingness to follow the crowd: “I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference” (Frost, n.d., para. 4). The poem’s conclusion returns to the ideas of decisiveness and irreversibility, thus offering the audience a proper closure and prompting readers to think about the choices they make in their lives.

Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood is a famous author who has written a large number of works in poetry and prose. Some of her most notable creations are The Handmaid’s Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Cat’s Eye. Atwood writes in a variety of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Happy Endings is one of many short stories written by Atwood, and it focuses on the array of possibilities in life and love.

The story starts with a simple plot of “John and Mary meet” (Atwood, 1983). From this point onward, the author explores six options for the future of the character’s relationship, each resulting in the death of both characters. Plot A is the conventional happy ending that is often evident in romance works: both characters fall in love, get married, have children, and grow old together (Atwood, 1983). Plots B and C include only one character falling in love, leading to a tragic end (Atwood, 1983). Plots D and E focus on Madge, who is a secondary character from plots B and C, and her new husband, Fred. Here, the story could either end tragically, with Fred dying of heart disease, or happily, after the two characters face some adversity and overcome it together (Atwood, 1983). Finally, plot F returns to the story of John and Mary: “if you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you” (Atwood, 1983, p. 20). The plot is followed by the author’s interpretation, which reveals her belief that endings are either uninteresting or downright fake, and that the most important thing is the journey.

The key feature of the short story that makes it particularly compelling is the author’s parodistic representation of the notion of a happy ending. Indeed, happy endings are the crucial part for most romantic stories, and Atwood (1983) ridicules this fact openly. For example, her sarcastic tone is evident throughout the work: “this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later,” “the rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it” (Atwood, 1983, pp. 19-20). By ridiculing conventional plot structures and endings evident in romantic stories, the author shows how people’s preoccupation with endings affects their ability to appreciate and enjoy the entire course of life. The final line of the story is “now try How and Why” (Atwood, 1983, p. 20), which emphasizes the importance of the journey, decisions made by people throughout their lives, and the reasons for those decisions.

The Lover Not Taken

The Lover Not Taken is a poem written by Blanche Farley that was written in 1984 in response to Frost’s The Road Not Taken. The work includes many components of the original poem, which allows suggesting that the author’s intention was to create a parody of Frost’s work. Indeed, Blanche’s poem applies Frost’s metaphorical contemplations to a trivial situation where a woman falls in love with a man while being in a committed relationship. Although the subject matter of the poem appears to be rather simple, the work can be analyzed from different viewpoints, and thus, it is possible to show how it represents the authors’ views on life.

The first noticeable similarity between The Road Not Taken and The Lover Not Taken is that in both poems, characters spend a considerable amount of time choosing which path to take. In Farley’s (1984) work, the woman cannot decide if she wants to stay in a committed relationship or leave for another man: “Committed to one, she wanted both/And, mulling it over, long she stood,/ Alone on the road” (para. 1). Similarly to Frost, Farley (1984) also emphasizes the fact that the two choices are mutually exclusive: “Couldn’t way just lead on to way?/ No” (para. 3).

Nevertheless, in The Lover Not Taken, the choice is not considered to be something irreversible. Farley (1984) highlights this idea by making it appear that the woman chose to stay committed to her partner and then stating, “But by then who would know the difference?” (para. 4). The poem shares Atwood’s ideas on the insignificance of endings because it suggests that the influence of one’s choices on the present in more important than future consequences. This is the main reason why the woman chooses to continue the affair with “the blond” instead of leaving him and staying faithful to her partner (Farley, 1984, para. 5). Hence, the poem shares the notions about life that are represented in Frost’s and Atwood’s works.

Interpretation

The analysis offers some important insights into the meaning of each of the three works. In particular, it allows interpreting the metaphors of life presented by each of the authors to highlight similarities and differences. Based on the exploration of the texts, it is evident that each work reflects its author’s views on life. Frost’s poem is often interpreted as an argument against the traditional path in life: “I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference” (Frost, n.d., para. 4). Nevertheless, this is a rather simplistic interpretation that fails to take into account the notion of irreversibility, which appears to be the most prominent topic in the poem. For the author, choices are a significant part of life because they determine the ending. However, by stressing irreversibility of decisions made throughout life, the author also makes a strong argument for shifting the focus from individual choices to the overall path taken by a person. This interpretation highlights the importance of the journey as a whole to the poet and suggests that people should enjoy whichever path they choose instead of dwelling on their past and future decisions.

A similar idea is presented by Atwood in Happy Endings. Although the work appears to be a critique of conventional romantic plots, the author’s thoughts can also be applied to real life. Atwood believes that most people focus too much on getting their happy ending, which often depends on things outside of their control rather than on the decisions they have made. For instance, in the plots examined by Atwood (1983), the character’s stories are affected by natural disasters, economic trends, and other people’s decisions. By stressing the external influences that shape people’s lives, Atwood shows that focusing one’s attention on a happy ending is pointless and that people should focus more on how they spend their lives.

The key idea in The Lover Not Taken is somewhat similar, although the author approaches it from a different perspective. By choosing to parody Frost’s work and apply the idea of contemplation to a trivial situation, the Farley (1984) suggests that one’s choices are not important at all for two reasons. On the one hand, people would never know what could have happened if they chose a different option. On the other hand, choices made by people are merely a reflection of their nature, and each individual choice does not have a significant impact on the future. Therefore, Farley seems to agree with the other two authors on the importance of the journey rather than the choices made throughout it, although her interpretation of choices and their impact is slightly different.

Conclusion

All in all, the three works have significant differences in terms of structure, style, and purpose. Frost’s poem focuses on the philosophical exploration of choices people make in life, whereas Atwood and Farley articulate their views more specifically. Atwood’s work is particularly interesting because it connects people’s preferences in literature with their attitude to life by examining the concept of happy endings. Nevertheless, the primary similarity between the three works is that they present metaphors of life that stress the importance of appreciating the journey instead of dwelling on its components. The analysis of the works shows that each author conveys their metaphors of life using different techniques, but comparing and contrasting the texts provides the insight necessary for interpretation.

References

Atwood, M. (1983). Happy endings. Web.

Farley, B. (1984). The lover not taken. Web.

Frost, R. L. (n.d.). The road not taken. Web.

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