Personal Choice: A Comparative Analysis - Essay Example

?Personal Choice: A Comparative Analysis Introduction The nature of personal choice is something that has concerned and philosophers since antiquity. To what extent is the human capable of free will, how much responsibility should we accept for the choices made, and what is the outcome of following one choice down a path over another – these are all questions that literature seeks to answer. This essay compares and contrasts the theme of personal choice through this spectrum of investigation and situates the comparison within two short literary works, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken and Alice Walker’s Everyday Use. The Road Not Taken Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken explores the concept of individual choice through the poetic medium. At the start of the poem, Frost begins this exploration through his comparison of the individual’s decision to, “Two roads diverg(ing) in a yellow wood.” It’s been noted that Frost’s implementation of the term ‘roads’ in this context is significant as rather than utilizing a more cliched word choice this term gives the work an eternal quality that greatly contributes to the poignancy of the individual’s choice (Untermeyer). The poem continues, “I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth.” In these regards, the poem’s implementation of the phrase ‘bent in the undergrowth’ symbolizes the nature of individual choice as representative of challenges and obstacles that are placed in front of one’s life journey and decision making process. This narrative concern differentiates the poem from Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’ in that the latter is more focused on the consequences of the choice. The third stanza continues, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back.” This metaphor represents the nature of choice in that once the decision is made it is finalized and difficult to undue. In ‘Everyday Use’ there is a powerful similarity and illustrations of this finality, as two sisters make different choices that ultimately separate them along lines of cultural sensibility. One of the primary differences between Frost’s exploration of personal choice and that implemented in ‘Everyday Use’ is the means with which it is articulated. In these regards, Frost makes great use of naturalistic imagery and symbolism to convey this thematic concern. As the poem continues, Frost explores the moment of decision making and personal choice. In these regards, the speaker refers to the instant when he decides to choose the path less traveled, “Then took the other, as just as fair/ And having perhaps the better claim/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear.” Here Frost is indicating that while both choices or paths presented potential benefits “just as fair”, the path that was taken was done out of personal belief in it being the proper way to live one’s life. In these regards, Frost’s work differs from ‘Everyday Use’ in that while both explore the question of personal choice, in the ‘Road Not Taken’ the agency of the speaker is presented as the main moral tone of the work; conversely, in ‘Everyday Use’ the work uses the protagonist to illustrate this theme, rather than demonstrating their conscious recognition of it. Everyday Use In Every Day Use by Alive Walker one sees the similar theme of personal choice as The Road Not Taken, however in a more developed form. In this story, personal choice is situated between two conflicting views of a family and a daughter that has experienced life outside the realm of their existence. While Maggie and her mother demonstrate the traditional road of understanding, Dee has followed a thoroughly modern and ‘educated’ path. Dee’s understanding of personal freedom is conflicted. While she has an appreciation of the influence of her ancestors she is clearly embarrassed of the way her mother and sister choose to live. Dee’s understanding of life is notably progressive, but despite looking at Dee with pride, there is a tacit sense on the part of her sister and mother that her understanding of life is false. In this instance, one can draw a comparison between the idea of two paths in The Road Not Taken and the two paths explored in Everyday Use. It seems in both instances, the author posits the path’s differences along a spectrum that ranges from acceptance of personal responsibility to one of avoiding your ultimate decisions. Sartre refers to this dichotomy as good faith vs. bad faith (Sartre 2004). It’s this underlining structure and conflict of choice that is inherent between these works. Whereas Frost is originally less chastising of the two paths, Everyday Use subtly insinuates that Dee’s path is actually the path of bad faith and denial of her true self and responsibility. One of the major similarities between the two works is there implementation of symbolism in demonstrating the nature of personal choice. In Frost this is demonstrated through the metaphor of one’s life journey as a path in the woods; in ‘Everyday Use’ this is developed through a number of symbolic tenants. It’s been noted that the conflicting nature of Dee’s choices is symbolized in discussion of the education she has received and the way she attempts to impart this to her family (Gates). When discussing Dee, her mother says, “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know.” While Dee professes to have a greater appreciation of the family heritage, the response her sister and mother have to Dee’s readings demonstrates a distrust of this new perspective. Here, Dee’s education is seen as path that indoctrinated her into the same habits and cultures that she is attempting to escape by changing her name. The quilt that the girls’ grandmother hand-stitched symbolized choice through the conflicting way the two sisters experience heritage. Along with their Uncle Buddy’s hand-whittled pottery, Maggie has little regards for the quilt and tells her mother, “‘she can have them, Mama,’ she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. ‘I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts.’ Dee’s argument was that Maggie didn’t understanding the significance of the quilts and would actually use them and not value them as ornament. The difference is significant because it’s the physical embodiment of the two roads and their conflicting results, of which Frost’s work only explored the beginning of this path. Maggie’s choice doesn’t requires the same need as Dee to appropriate items as objects, as her path as placed her in direct contact with the true way of life of her ancestors. As can be seen, the different views of personal freedom and choice are embodied in the personalities of the characters between Dee and her family. In Frost these choices are analyzed from the moment of choice, whereas Everday Use follows them through to their logic conclusion. Dee’s choice demonstrates that modernized and western perspective of her life as something that needs to be appreciated and recognized. To her, life has become something that you take pictures of and appreciate as art. Conversely, Maggie and her mother’s choice have remained closely tied to the way of life they were born in and don’t understand why Dee must attempt to capture her life in these ways. Conclusion In conclusion, it’s evident that the nature of personal choice is central to the thematic structure of both The Road Not Taken and Everday Use. While these short works don’t always agree on the extent to which choice and personal responsibility is directly attributable to the individual or to what is always the right choice, they both function to analyze the decision making process. Ultimately, the most predominant element linking the stories is their reliance on the essential metaphor of paths – “the road not taken”, the path of education vs. the path of tradition, and the approval of poetry over prose all indicate that the thematic concern of personal choice is also the thematic concern of much great literature. References Gates, Henry, L. (2000) Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Harper Paper Backs. Pritchard, William H.. "On "The Road Not Taken". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of English. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/road.htm. Sartre, Jean Paul (2004): Existentialism: 1940-1974. University College London. Untermeyer, Louis. (2002). The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost's Poems. Holt Paperbacks. Walker, Alice. (1994) Everyday Use. Rutgers University Press. Read More