Robert frost- the road not taken Essay Example for Free

Robert frost- the road not taken Essay Life is full of obstacles that have been throw our way to see who is the strongest to survive, some make it to the end and some suffer more in the process. When people open up to different opportunities, it is the initial response by human nature to pick the opportunity that will give you the most benefit. The concept of having to pick between two paths has been identified in the poem â€Å"The Road Not Taken† by Robert Frost. There have been times when a person had to choose a specific path that they though they should take but the truth of the matter was it ended up being the wrong choice. In life it is normal for people to make mistakes because we were not created and put in this world to be perfect. Nothing in life can be prefect because there is sadness along side happiness. When reading this poem it is as if I am in this poem and I was watching from the sidelines but I can read into the poets mind. Poems like this are rare; the way they are told with such vivid imagery sets the scenery up in the readers mind. The diction Frost uses to describe the fall season so adequately and imbeds it in the poem to run it more smoothly. In the first stanza, Frost says â€Å"And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth†, with such poetic significance that he is looking as far as he can into the two roads on one autumn day. He implies that he is sorry in the second line because he has a form of regret that he cannot travel both of the roads laid ahead of him at once. Not only are these the paths to another day but also they are the paths to his future. That is when Frost freezes and has to decide which one would most benefit him. Now he is forced by his own willpower to stumble upon the second road to which he continues to talk about. By using play on words such as â€Å"just† and â€Å"fair† he confuses the reader. Frost has a powerful way of making a poem become a story line by having the reader interpret his thoughts. Frost has the power of using similes when he compares the roads to being fair. Moving through the second stanza he explains that he chose the second road only because he thought it was the rode less taken by any other human. He uses vivid phrases like â€Å"it was  grassy and wanted wear† which makes it known to the readers of this poem that the path he chose to take was the path that not a lot of other people took because it looked fresh without any footsteps. Right when the reader thinks he has figured the poet out, Frost goes and complicates our understanding by comparing the two paths and declaring them equal to one another. Like every great poet, the reader finds everything out line-by-line, which makes his writing more of a mystery than a straightforward poem. In the beginning of the third stanza we learn that it is in fact morning when Frost decides to take the road he has chosen. We figure that out because he writes, â€Å"And both that morning equally lay.† Does he realize that the reason why the road does not look used is because he might be the first person that day to take that path down to success or failure? Frost uses more fancy words in the poem to confuse us but really when he states â€Å"In leaves no step had trodden black.† he mentions the leaves haven’t turned black because people haven’t stepped on them or crushed them. Just like how the leaves survive the night, he compared it to himself in hopes that he will survive as well. Including an epiphany in the writing by saying â€Å"Oh, I kept the first for another day!† not only shows us regret but also shows us some hopes he has in going back one day and taking the road he did not choose the first time around. The next two lines where Frost wrote â€Å" Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back.† really explain the chances of being able to go back are one in a million. It would be foolish of him to think he would have a chance at something that can change in a second. In the final stanza of this great and powerful poem, Frost changes the tense of this poem to where he is in the future looking back to his choices. He uses the word â€Å"sigh† that can portray many meaning as if he said it from happiness or sadness or he is just reflecting upon his experience. But when Frost states â€Å"Somewhere ages and ages hence:† it is obvious that this story he tells us, he will keep telling it many years from now. With a neat way of repeating the first line of the poem he brings his story to an end. The form repetition is used to help put emphasis on the importance of the poem and  with that he says â€Å"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—â€Å" in which he compares himself to the road where he is standing. Frost reflects on his decision of taking the one less traveled in confidences that it has made him more unique. And he ended the poem by expressing his experiences and looking back into his decisions. Frost realizes that if he were to take the road not traveled he would not have experienced all that he did. This ending of the poem shows ambiguity because he wants the richest experience possible. Thinking back on this poem helps us understand life much more, the fact that life is full of irony. In particular to this poem, the title of the poem itself is ironic because it is called â€Å"The Road Not Taken† where in fact he puts more emphasis on the road he DID take. This whole poem has been based around dreams, choices, hopes, and plans for the future. The fact that he uses nature as his surrounding he is metaphorically comparing it to life itself. If you were to dissect this poem further, you would realize that the poem is contradicting the way it is set up. While reading a poem about paths and choices it really it only leads you to think of your own struggles you have been through. I never realized how much I have regretted some of the choices I have made in my life. The only difference between my life and this poem was that I had to choose between not one or two paths but three. It also gets harder to distinguish which path you want when all the paths give you exactly one thing you treasure most. This poem connects to me personally because when I was starting high school I had to make a decision whether I wanted to stay with the crowd of friends I had that included some friends my parents didn’t like or to make new friends which meant I had to open up to people, or initially take it one day at a time even if it meant to hurt my parents and go against their decisions. Ultimately it was somewhat of a loss to me because in any choice I made I lost something that was most important to me. I value friendship so much but I value my parents and their opinion so much more. Until this day I think about how my life would have been different if I didn’t make the decision I did. Life is honestly too short to live with regret but that does  not mean that there won’t be moments where you wish you had done something differently. I am proud of the path I chose and made new friends because in the end I was able to make my parents proud because they liked my new group of friends and I became apart of a new social circle. I never had anything handed to me in my life, whatever I wanted and wished for I was the one in charge for it. Just like Robert Frost I had to stand there and look as far as I could into my future to be able to make the choice that would be most right for me. Even though I lost so many friends that I was once close to, it helped me mature and also became a strong person. In this world we live in, we have to lose certain things to be able to gain more challenges that become second nature to us. The outcome of my choice of choosing to make new friends was that I gained more of my parents’ trust, attention, and love. Love is the most important thing other than health for a family to share. Frost showed me that in order to move forward in life, no matter how uncertain, you just have to give it a try and see what the outcome is. Sometimes it won’t be the outcome in which you wanted to acquire but it wont necessarily be one that you dread for the rest of your life. There will be moments where you will dwell on the past and hoped you had taken another road but you have to focus on the future. Looking back now, I do not regret the choice I made even if it involved losing some friends that had turned into family. Not everything in life is meant to be regretful. There are so many wonderful aspects of life we never figure out because we are too busy worrying about how difficult an obstacle may be. God and life itself puts obstacles in our way to show us we can overcome any hardships. I knew by making my choice to make new friends I myself would become a better person. Just like the ending of Robert Frost’s poem â€Å" And that has made all the difference.†

The Lie of the Land :: Haydn Middleton The Lie of the Land Essays

The Lie of the Land This is a list of explications--things a North American reader might need to know in order to make most sense out of Haydn Middleton's The Lie of the Land. I re-read the novel and made a list of unclear references or ambiguous words or terms. I included the page number and a short explanation of the context; I then proffered each word with the definition I was able to find! Before delving into my textual explications, let me add a short "preface" first. As I re-read Middleton's novel, I found myself intensely interested in the cultural differences between North Americans and the English from (you guessed it...) England. My fascination with the inexplicable difference, yet explicable intertwining of our two cultures is probably provoked by a book I'm reading for another class, Cultural Misunderstandings by Raymonde Carroll, a French anthropologist. Carroll has extensively studied the differences between Americans and Europeans, mainly French. She gave an interesting analysis concerning Americans and our way of conducting or cultivating relationships. Well, I was reading the novel again, and if you caught it, Rachel offers Alasdair an invitation to dinner. This might not strike you as significant at all, but hold on--note that here in the United States, we will frequently end a conversation with, "Call me!" or "Let's get together, sometime, okay? I'll cal l you sometime!" These advances are never realized, of course, but are merely conversation climaxers. Rachel says to Alasdair, "Look . . . you should come round some time with Maggie. We'd love to see you . . . " (25). A couple of chapters later, the dinner scene is a very significant addition to the story, hmm? Carroll made the comment that Americans portray themselves as superficial and flighty with their many unrealized invitations. Europeans, on the other hand, tend to extend invitations and set the date in the proceeding avenue of discourse. Details. Dr. Gilgun taught my Fiction class last semester, and we learned that details develop ordestroy the story. Details divorce me from the story or seduce me, leaving me wondering where reality ends and the surreal begins. Details characterize the culture behind the author, the culture in and within where delight is reached, found, discovered and eventually shared. But anyway . . . enough of diversion! TEXTUAL EXPLICATIONS--please feign acquiescence, and pretend that this list is complete and can stand alone; there were so many more textual nuances that I wanted to include! Hmm .

Case Brief: London v. Directors of the DeWitt Public Schools

DeWitt Middle School teacher and coach Jeff Rader found Carl Avery and another student engaged in a â€Å"horseplay† in the school cafeteria. Rader asked both boys to leave the cafeteria of which the other student immediately complied. Rader again asked Avery to leave but the boy refused to comply the second time. At this point, Rader began to remove Avery from the cafeteria by force.The boy, however, fought back and slammed the coach into a table. During the encounter, Rader was able to drag the boy on the floor and banged the boy's head against the metal pole outside the cafeteria. They proceeded to the principal's office where each were asked for their version of the story, but Avery struck the hands of the principal in his frustration during the course of the interview, at which point the principal called the police.School authorities recommended for Avery to be expelled, of which DeWitt School District Superintendent Emerson approved. They informed Ms. London, mother of A very, and explained the procedures. A hearing was conducted and the school board decided to expel Avery for the remainder of the school year. Ms. London filed a lawsuit where the District Court granted the defendants' motion for judgement on partial findings, of which Ms.London filed for an appeal on three grounds, that the District Court erred: â€Å"(1) in holding that Rader did not violate Avery's substantive-due-process rights; (2) in holding that there were no procedural-due-process violations in Avery's suspension or in his expulsion; and (3) in not ordering the DeWitt School System to submit a remedial plan concerning discrimination in hiring† (United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit 1999). The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed with the District Court judgement and dismissed the appeal.They held that Rader could not have violated Avery's substantive-due-process rights as he has asked Avery to leave the cafeteria twice. Although Rader banged Avery's head on a pole, the injury which the boy may have suffered could not have been severe to shock judicial conscience due to the fact that the boy could not even remember which side of his head had been banged. There could also not have been any violation of procedural-due-process as Avery and his mother was appraised of the charges and was given the opportunity to present his side, first in the principal's office, then on the board hearing.The plaintiff has also failed in proving a condition of segregated schooling in accusing the DeWitt School System with discrimination hiring. The decision of the Court of Appeals stressed the importance of effective discipline and order to educational processes. This means that educators have their own discrimination how to discipline students but with restrictions that are provided by law. References United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit. (1999). London v. Directors of the Dewitt Public Schools, 194 F. 3d 873, 139.

Should College Sports Be Paid - 1732 Words

â€Å"It’s down to seven seconds. You see the time†¦Whittenburg†¦. Oh it’s a long ways, Oh he’s there! They won it†¦on a dunk!† Billy Packer said this when covering the historical run by the NC State Wolfpack to win the Division 1 NCAA tournament in a dramatic fashion. A team with no chance of making the tournament, let alone winning the championship, does the impossible and wins the NCAA Division 1 championship. Despite NC State being a smaller school compared to the big basketball powerhouses like Virginia, UNC, Houston and many others, they had players work and will their way to the finish line. If players were paid, you wouldn’t see players like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, or Ralph Sampson on different teams. It would be the college with the most money, could pay the best student-athletes, the most money and Cinderella stories for the most part would disappear. Dynasties of college sports would be made. Money would r uin college sports more than it already has. It has already stripped championships, ruined players images and futures, and tarnished reputations of colleges. The Fab 5, the near â€Å"3-Pete† for Oklahoma University, and the USC Trojans football team scandal, are just a few instances where college sports were affected wrongly by the idea of â€Å"play for pay.† Colleges and Universities should not pay students to participate in college sports because of all the benefits the athletes receive, the fact that the colleges wouldn’t be able to pay for otherShow MoreRelatedShould College Sports Be Paid?1680 Words   |  7 Pagesknown as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (â€Å"NCAA†) (Gregory). College sports have become more popular than ever before, especially with the help of television and modern technology. Making over $700 million a year, this industry has been introduced numerous times over the years to the debate of prohibiting payments t o athletes other than athletic scholarships (Goldman). Currently, in order to meet the demand of sports, especially at a Division I University, high school athletes are recruitedRead MoreShould College Sports Be Paid?2868 Words   |  12 PagesDivision I college athletics have come a very long way since its original erection in the late 1800s as only something that occurred at the Ivy Leagues. Today, there is now a side which advocates for paid compensations for college athletes (this is mostly focused in football and basketball). According to the NCAA s current policy on intercollegiate compensation the athlete first must be considered an amateur. This rule that is in place is extremely redundant because in order for a student toRead More Should College Athletes be Paid? Essay1510 Words   |  7 Pagescontroversies with sports is, should student athletes be be paid a salary? Some people believe that they should be paid and others would completely disagree. Even though they t echnically are being paid, they really are not. The only type of way the athletes would be paid is through financial aid or if they have a job. Only their education is being paid by the school. Although some people believe that they should be paid, it would not be a good idea at all. So college athletes should not be paid at all becauseRead MoreThe National Collegiate Athletic Association1227 Words   |  5 Pagesthat college athletics is a $10-billion marketplace† (Suggs). With huge sums of revenue generated from college sports teams, players for the successful teams appear to be very marketable. â€Å"The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the largest collegiate sports organization in the United States, oversees much of the business of American college sports. For 2011-12, the NCAA reported $871.6 million in revenue-- 81 percent of which came from a broadcast rights agreement with Turner/CBS Sports. AnotherRead MoreShould College Athletes Get Paid?1742 Words   |  7 PagesShould College Athletes Get Paid? Should college athletes be paid? This has been a controversial topic ever since college sports started. Many people argue that they should. Many people argue that they should not. College athletes should get paid because they work extremely hard playing their sport. The people that say they should be paid argue that the amount of time athletes dedicate is equivalent to a full-time job, and maybe even more. The people that say they should not get paid argue that collegeRead MoreWhy College Athletes Should Not Be Paid1301 Words   |  6 PagesNovember 2015 Why College Athletes Should Not Be Paid What amount of money should college athletes be paid? This has been a controversial question for many years.Some lower level Division One NCAA athletes think that their scholarships do not pay them enough as it is, and instead they want cash rather than the scholarship. These situations have been taken to court and arbitrated in NCAA hearings. The NCAA, or the National College Athletics Association, has declined for the athletes to be paid a salary everyRead MoreNCAA aAhletes and Pay 1142 Words   |  5 PagesShould college student-athletes be paid has become a much debated topic. The incentive for a student-athlete to play a college sport should not be for money, but for the love of the game. It has been argued that colleges are making money and therefore the student-athlete should be compensated. When contemplating college income from sporting events and memorabilia from popular sports, such as football and basketball, it must not be forgotten that colleges do incur tremendous ex pense for all theirRead MoreShould College Athletes Be Paid?1713 Words   |  7 PagesCollege sports are one of the largest and fastest growing markets in today’s culture. With some college sports games attracting more viewers than their professional counterparts, the NCAA is one of the most profiting organizations in America. Recently there has been controversy in the world of college sports as to whether the college athletes that are making their universities and the NCAA money should receive payment while they are playing their respective sport. Many believe that these athletesRead MoreShould College Athletes Be Paid?1364 Words   |  6 PagesHave you paid attention to all of the news that has been surfacing about collegiate sports lately? It is a big topic now days in the world of sports on weather college athletes should be getting paid to play sports. College athletics have gained great popularity of the past few decades, and have brought schools lots of revenue. A lo t of college athletes think they should be getting paid for their services they do for their school. College sports like basketball and football generate over six billionRead MoreStudent Athletes Being Paid or Not700 Words   |  3 PagesStudent Athletes Being Paid or Not College athletics today are enormous compared to the size that it was many years ago, especially in the region that I live in which is SEC country, should student athletes that have contributed to this growth be compensated for their contributions or not. With many big television deals and high ticket pricing this has been a topic that has become a constant in the minds of many. This topic is beginning to gather legs and making a move to the forefront of the NCAA