Symbolism of the Journey

Symbolism of the Journey

ENG 125: Introduction to Literature

Symbolism of the Journey

We have all heard the phrase “life is a journey” and can relate to this phrase’s meaning. A path or a road is used quite often in literature to symbolize the journey of a person’s life experiences. An assumed man (considering the persona is the author himself) is walking on a familiar path in the yellow woods, the path splits into two paths and he must make a decision in Robert Frost’s poem The Road not Taken. In Jean Rhys’s short story I Used to Live Here Once, the unnamed female protagonist is also walking on a familiar path in the yellow woods, but her path is different from the way she remembered it as a child. At hand, several similarities and differences between a short story and a poem can be compared and contrasted, a short story having a narrator and a poem having a voice or persona, through analysis and consideration of the relationships among two literary works that share the same theme of symbolism of the journey. The Road Not Taken, a poem by Robert Frost, and I Used to Live Here Once, a short story by Jean Rhys, will be discussed, and the content, form and style will be compared and contrasted.

Primarily, the content of these two literary works involves what each piece is about and how the theme helps make this clear. The mood in both pieces are at peace and happy with oneself. Found within both pieces, a person is traveling on a familiar path and reflecting on a certain time of life as it is perceived by their prospective persona and narrator. In each literary piece, this person traveling recalls their childhood and images of their younger selves, both knowing neither can return from which they came. Each story being told, the person comes to a crossroads or later adulthood self, recognizes the changes within their surroundings which symbolize choices each person made in their own lifetime. Tone is “the attitude reflected by the author in a literary work; it identifies the author's approach to the subject a story deals with” (Clugston, 2010). The tone in The Road Not Taken (Frost, 1916) is content and happy. The man is not in a hurry as he states “long I stood and looked down one as far as I could” (Clugston, 2010) in the first stanza. Within the second and third stanza, the man is not worried that the two roads appear to be the same. In further examining the two roads, a conflict presents itself which does not affect the man as being stressful; he must make a choice as to which road he should take. I Used to Live Here Once (Rhys, 1976) has a similar tone and goes a little further by saying “she walked along feeling extraordinarily happy” (Clugston, 2010). The woman notices some changes along her path, but pays them no mind and continues on as she is also not in a hurry. The tone of these