Author Question: Is this poem addressed to a specific person? What will be an ideal ... (Read 96 times)

amal · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

Is this poem addressed to a specific person?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Compare Machados poem with Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken. In what way does Machados use of the road as a symbol resemble Frosts use?

What will be an ideal response?

jaymee143 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Apparently not, to judge by the first three words of line 13. Whoever you are can connote Whatever sort of person you are, but in context it appears to be a phrase of general reference. The you of the poem would seem to be the reader; line 5, obviously, is not to be understood literally.

Answer to Question 2

Frosts roads and Machados road are the road(s) of life. But Frost imagines two roads, Machado only one. In Frosts poem, the two roads are already there, and the traveler decides which one to take, and this choice will determineto a certain degree, at leastthe course his or her life takes. In Machados poem, the road does not exist until the traveler begins to walk, and it is in fact the traveler who creates the road by the very act of walking. In Frosts poem, others have been on these very realistic roads before, and others will presumably travel on them in the future. In Machados poem, the road is unique to this single travelerno one has ever traveled the same road before and no one will ever travel it again. For while in Frosts poem the roads have been and will be there for a long time, in Machados poem, the road is not really a road at all, but a track of foam upon the sea, something that is created only to disappear after an instant. Frosts speaker doubts he will ever return to the other road and follow it to where it leads. Machado, by contrast, makes it clear that there is no turning back, no trying any other road.