some irony regarding such an idea. A critique in The Paris Review by David Orr described the misunderstanding this way: <blockquote>"The poem’s speaker tells us he 'shall be telling,' at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled…yet he has already admitted that the two paths 'equally lay / In leaves' and 'the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.' So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.'''' </blockquote> Frost himself wrote the poem as a joke for his friend Edward Thomas, who was often indecisive about which route to take when the two went walking. A New York Times book review on Brian Hall's 2008 biography Fall of Frost'' states: "Whichever way they go, they're sure to miss something good on the other path." Regarding the "sigh" that is mentioned in the last stanza, it may be seen as an expression of regret or of satisfaction. However, there is significance in the difference between what the speaker has just said of the two roads, and what he will say in the future. According to Lawrance Thompson, Frost's biographer, as Frost was once about to read the poem, he commented to his audience, "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem—very tricky," perhaps intending to suggest the poem's ironic possibilities. Thompson suggests that the poem's narrator is "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected." Thompson also says that when introducing the poem in readings, Frost would say that the speaker was based on his friend Edward Thomas. In Frost's words, Thomas was "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other. He was hard on himself that way." References External links 3 audio readings of The Road Not Taken Critical essays on "The Road Not Taken" 1915 poems 1900s poems Poetry by Robert Frost American poems Modernist poems Works originally published in American magazines Works originally published in literary magazines