AP® English Literature and Composition review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/lit/units/8/8-3)
Unit 8 · Topic 8.3
8.3 Ambiguity and symbols in poems
Many poems support more than one reasonable reading, and that ambiguity is often the point, not a problem to solve. Symbols add to it, because a symbol can carry several meanings at once. Watch how a speaker uses symbols, since they can reveal the speaker's attitude or perspective.
Key terms
- ambiguity
- multiple interpretations
- symbol
- speaker
- attitude
Ambiguity is a feature
Ambiguity means a word, line or whole poem can be read in more than one reasonable way. It isn't the same as vagueness. An ambiguous poem gives you specific evidence for two or more readings, and the tension between them is part of what the poem means.
When you find ambiguity, don't force a choice too early. Ask what each reading depends on, and what the poem gains by keeping both alive.
Ambiguity can come from a single word with two meanings, from unclear grammar (a pronoun that could point to two different things), from a tone that could be sincere or ironic, or from an ending that doesn't settle the question the poem raised.
Symbols and the speaker's attitude
A symbol in a poem works like a symbol in fiction (see 6.6): an image that stands for something beyond itself. In poems, symbols often reveal how the speaker sees things. Two speakers could look at the same rose; one sees love, the other sees how quickly beauty dies. The symbol tells you about the speaker as well as the rose.
Some symbols are conventional, like a road for the journey of life or winter for old age. A poem can use a conventional symbol and then complicate it.
Frost's "The Road Not Taken"
Robert Frost's poem, from his 1916 book Mountain Interval, is often read as praise for choosing the unusual path. Read closely, it is much less certain. The speaker stands where "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood." He picks one because it was "grassy and wanted wear," but immediately admits that "the passing there / Had worn them really about the same," and that both "equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black."
The last stanza jumps into the future: "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence." Only then does he claim "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." The roads are a conventional symbol for life choices, but the speaker's attitude toward them is ambiguous. Is the sigh regret or contentment? Is the difference good or bad? Is he admitting that people later tell their random choices as if they were bold ones?
How to write about an ambiguous poem
- Name the ambiguity precisely: which word or line supports which readings.
- Give evidence for each reading.
- Explain what the poem gains by not choosing.
- Build your thesis on the tension itself, not on one side of it.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Building a thesis on ambiguity
A student writes: "In 'The Road Not Taken,' Frost says that choosing the less popular path makes your life better." Using the lines "Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same," "I shall be telling this with a sigh," and "And that has made all the difference," explain what this reading misses and write a stronger thesis.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Check the evidence the student ignored: the speaker says the roads were worn "really about the same," so neither was clearly less traveled.
- Step 2: Look at the time frame: the claim about the less traveled road is something the speaker predicts he will say "ages and ages hence." It's a story told later, not a fact from the moment of choice.
- Step 3: Read "sigh" both ways: it could be wistful satisfaction or regret.
- Step 4: Notice that "all the difference" never says whether the difference was good.
- Step 5: Write a thesis that makes the ambiguity the point.
Answer: Stronger thesis: Frost uses the familiar symbol of a fork in the road to question the stories people tell about their choices. Because the roads were worn "really about the same," the speaker's later claim to have taken "the one less traveled by" looks less like a fact than like a story he expects to tell "with a sigh," and the poem leaves open whether that sigh, and "all the difference," express satisfaction or regret.
Common mistakes
- Treating ambiguity as vagueness. Point to the exact words that support each reading.
- Picking the most popular reading of a famous poem without checking it against the lines.
- Decoding a symbol with one fixed meaning when the speaker's attitude toward it is uncertain.
On the exam
- Multiple-choice questions may ask which interpretation a line best supports, or what the speaker's attitude toward a symbol seems to be. Choose the answer that fits all the evidence, including the inconvenient lines.
- In the poetry essay, a thesis that explains why a poem stays ambiguous can earn the sophistication point, but only if you support both readings with evidence.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
5 questions on 8.3 Ambiguity and symbols in poems. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Claude McKay, "America," Harlem Shadows (1922)
The closing image of America’s “might and granite wonders” sinking “Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand” (lines 12–14) is ambiguous chiefly because it
William Blake, "A Poison Tree," Songs of Experience (1794). "Wiles" (line 8): tricks. "Veiled the pole" (line 14): hid the sky.
The word “glad” in line 15 is most disturbing because it
The poison tree as a whole is best read as a symbol of
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" (1818). Ozymandias is a Greek name for Ramesses II, an ancient Egyptian king. "Visage" (line 4): face.
Lines 6–8 say the sculptor “well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, / The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.” These lines suggest that
The closing image of “The lone and level sands” that “stretch far away” (line 14) chiefly suggests
0 of 5 answered