Analyze "The Road Not Taken" with a formalism and neo criticism perspective.

For ages hence, or for many years now, the narrator
wonders what would have happened if he had taken the other road. In fact, he tarried
where the two roads diverged. He stared down both roads. Why is the narrator hesitant
and unsure of which road to take?

No doubt, this poem is a
"what if" type of poem. Notice the title is about the road the narrator did not take. He
is writing about the road he did not take. He is wondering what would have happened in
his life if had taken the other road.

By the last stanza,
the reader is speculative about the author's "sigh." Is he sighing in a relieved sigh or
is he saddened by the fact that he did not take the other
road?

I shall
be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages
hence:

It is true that the
narrator desired to take both roads. He is torn between the two
roads:

And
both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden
black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way
leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come
back.

Sadly, the reader could
not take both roads. The road one takes in life determines so much about one's life. Did
the narrator take the right road? Would the other road have made a difference in his
life?Ultimately, the narrator "sighs" in reflection, but claims that the road he took
has made the difference.

Truly, by the end of the poem, the
reader gathers that the poet is mostly satisfied with his choice of the two roads. He
admits that he took the road that less people traveled and that has made all the
difference:

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the
difference.

In life, often
the road less traveled by is the best road. It is difficult to take a road less traveled
by for the grass is much taller. It is easy to walk where others have already tread down
the grass. Though the less traveled by road has difficuly in passage, it is the road in
which the traveler will not be persuaded to follow the crowd. Obviously, the narrator
knew which road to take all along. That does not mean we will not be tempted in
life.