The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
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 on 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.
Let's analyse the poem and look out for the figurative language used.
In the first stanza, the picture that is brought to the readers minds is a man travelling on the road in the woods during autumn. This phrase that suggests the time that this incident occurred is “yellow wood”, which indicates that the leaves have all turned yellow.
From the second and third stanza, we know that the man is forced to make a choice and can only choose one road to travel” and will not be coming back ever. Thus, he feels gloomy. His emotion is exaggerated by the hyperboles “sorry”, “sigh” and “Oh, I kept the first for another day!”.
Personification is used in the eighth stanza, when he finds that one of the roads is grassier, and thus “wanted wear”, indicating that the road is in need of being trodden on. He then goes on to contradict himself by saying that both roads are equally worn out.
In the end, the man chooses the road less travelled and he has no regrets.
Metaphor and symbolism are also uses in this poem. The journey that the man takes is the metaphor for the journey of life and the two diverging roads symbolize the decisions one has to make in one’s life. The grassier and less-travelled road represents the more challenging path of life, for it had “leaves no step had trodden black”. The more-travelled road represents the easier path of life, the one which is chosen by the norm. The man chooses to stand out from the crowd and fish in deep waters, challenging himself, pushing himself to the limit and thus, stretching his potential. He does not regret doing so
This is the figurative language used in the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
I like this poem because it uses much figurative language and because it has several levels of meaning. It also portrays a scenario that everyone experiences many time in one's life: having to make a choice.
CJ
