thematic and formal connection

am writing a 1,200 word essay discussing the thematic and formal connections and differences between œThe Road not Taken and œStopping by Woods One Snowy Evening.

I understand some thematic connections (seasons, pastoral images, woods, what the narrator sees and what the narrator feels, traditional poetic form with the naturalness of common speech, darker œunderlying world in the poems, how the narrator is alone and burdened with choice, rseistence to time and change¦) can you help me name any more, perhaps more important themes I may have overlooked?

I am having a bit of an issue with the differences of the two poems. Again, I understand a bit (one is in fall (yellow wood) and the other in winter); in œThe Road.., the narrator is burdoned with choice and anxiety about making the wrong choice, in œStopping by woods¦ the narrator is burdoned with a promise, and a cart, and must make a choice to continue on. In addition, in œstopping by woods, I beleve the narrator is contending with hypothermia, and death (falling alsleep) because of the cold, hence ending the last two lines by repeating, œAnd miles to go before I sleep much like a final sigh, which differes from the œtelling this with a sigh line that expersses (in my view) regret in œthe Road Not Taken. Am I missing anything?

I am at a loss regarding œformal connections! Please give me a hint!

Please help me in structuring this paper by addressing the above issues¦I have a rough draft due tomorrow at 8 am. If you have any other suggestions on how to better this paper, please let me know!

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Thank you!

For your Reference:

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
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 to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

WHOSE woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

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