I've never thought of it as a triumph of choice, "See, it's because I chose thus!"
And I've never thought of it as self-deception, which I think is what the article says. A poem is in some sense our own, but to the extent that you can be wrong about a poem, I think this article is wrong.
I think it's merely a wonderful acknowledgement that choosing different paths do make a difference, even when it doesn't appear to matter at the time. Frost's character wasn't making an obviously important choice between the paths. But way did in fact lead to way, and life was probably different, partially determined, because of this metaphorical inconsequential choice of direction.
My other favorite Frost poem is "The Hired Man," from which we get the line "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
I don't think that your interpretation is wrong, but I think you also have to acknowledge that poem is about how when we look back at these choices, we romanticize and assign meaning to these choices that were essentially random.
The man in the poem while reminiscing says 'I took the road less traveled by' but the narrator explicitly says that travel had 'worn them really about the same'. So the self-deception part is fairly explicit.
This is not true. This may be the reason for the misreading! He is not reminiscing. he is commenting about reminiscence itself. The author says that in the future he will look back with a sign and state that.
To your first paragraph, I had that in mind, but struggled to say it.
To the second, yeah, OK, but I think deception is a little strong, in part because he acknowledges that they're about the same. He knows that. He had to go somewhere, so he went.
I've never thought of it as a triumph of choice, "See, it's because I chose thus!"
And I've never thought of it as self-deception, which I think is what the article says. A poem is in some sense our own, but to the extent that you can be wrong about a poem, I think this article is wrong.
I think it's merely a wonderful acknowledgement that choosing different paths do make a difference, even when it doesn't appear to matter at the time. Frost's character wasn't making an obviously important choice between the paths. But way did in fact lead to way, and life was probably different, partially determined, because of this metaphorical inconsequential choice of direction.
My other favorite Frost poem is "The Hired Man," from which we get the line "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."