Robert Frost was one of America's rare public literary figures' born on March 26, 1874. Frost was the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy presented Frost with the United States Congressional Gold Medal in appreciation of his poetry, which he received in March 1962. Frost’s 'The Road Not Taken,' presented many uses of poetic devices such as imagery, sound devices, and figurative language.
I believe The Road Not Taken describes a story based on the fear of regret. The Road Not Taken is whichever choice he might have made, meaning he did not choose any road to travel for fear of regretting it in the future. Examples of sound devices are used in this poem, such as alliteration. An example is in stanza two, there is a repetition of the ‘the sound, 'Then took the other' “Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same.” In stanza two there is another example of alliteration used. In line three, the ‘w’ sound is repeated in “wanted wear.”
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Another example of a poetic device is the use of imagery in stanza two. The poet depicts the two paths in vivid detail. Because there were few people on that road, he claims one was grassy. The poet also describes both roads that morning, noting that no leaves had been blackened by passing people. I believe Frost creates images to capture the beauty of nature, and that this imagery is a representation of a person's powerful emotional feelings and life experiences in some way.
Metaphors are an example of figurative language. I believe metaphors are utilized in this poem because the entire poem is a metaphor for life. When Frost speaks on the fork in the road, I think it is a metaphor for the choices we have to make in life and the road is life. These metaphors tell the importance of the choices and decisions we make in life and how they could affect and impact it. “And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth,”. The use of a metaphor is presented as the future, we can only see as far just as we can only see the immediate effects of our actions.
In conclusion, I think Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken,” is an example of life and the decisions we make. The fear of regretting those decisions in the future is what leads him to this poem. There is a struggle to choose a road and to avoid missing out on either choice the narrator loses out on both.
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