Compare Machado’s poem with Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” In what way does Machado’s use of the road as a symbol resemble Frost’s use?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Frost’s roads and Machado’s road are the road(s) of life. But Frost imagines two roads, Machado only one. In Frost’s poem, the two roads are already there, and the traveler decides which one to take, and this choice will determine—to a certain degree, at least—the course his or her life takes. In Machado’s poem, the road does not exist until the traveler begins to walk, and it is in fact the traveler who creates the road by the very act of walking. In Frost’s poem, others have been on these very realistic roads before, and others will presumably travel on them in the future. In Machado’s poem, the road is unique to this single traveler—no one has ever traveled the same road before and no one will ever travel it again. For while in Frost’s poem the roads have been and will be there for a long time, in Machado’s poem, the road is not really a road at all, but “a track of foam upon the sea,” something that is created only to disappear after an instant. Frost’s speaker doubts he will ever return to the other road and follow it to where it leads. Machado, by contrast, makes it clear that there is no turning back, no trying any other road.