Mr. Schneider 11/5/14
Choices are very significant. They have significance on the decision maker, the people around the decision maker, and even on people who the choice maker may not know. The significance of a choice can be seen in the short story “The Roads We Take”, by O. Henry, and in the poem “The Road Not Taken”, by Robert Frost.
A choice obviously has a great significance on the choice maker. Sometimes this choice can even change a person’s life completely, but at other times, the person will end up pretty much the same no matter what his choice is. This is shown clearly in “The Roads We Take” when Shark Dodson has a dream in which he has a choice as to which fork in the road he should take. In the end he takes the left fork and ends up in the camp of a Wild West show. Ultimately, he becomes a bandit in the Wild West. However, in real life Dodson takes the fork that leads to New York and he becomes a stock broker. One path takes him to the Wild West and one to New York. Also, in the poem the character takes a road that in the last line of the poem the author states “has made all the difference”.
A choice also has large consequences on the people around the person who makes the choice. Sometimes the outcome of a choice does not change, even if the choice changes. For example, in the short story, in Dodson’s dream, he leaves his friend behind so that he does not have to split the stolen cash between the two of them. Parallel to this, in the end of the story, in real life, Dodson causes his friend a great loss of money in his stock dealings. No matter which path Dodson took, the outcome turned out the same; he acted with cupidity and caused his friend a great financial loss. Plus, in Frost’s poem, one can explain that the character’s choice of taking the path less taken has had great effects on the people around him.
Furthermore, a choice can have everlasting effects on people