What Figurative Language Is In The Road Not Taken?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

, , , ,

What figurative language is in the road not taken? In the poem ‘The Road Not Taken,' Robert Frost uses figurative language to enrich its meaning. Most obviously, the poet employs

metaphor and extended metaphor

. The whole poem is an extended metaphor for life (the road) and the choices we must make along the way (the divergent paths).

Is there alliteration in The Road Not Taken?


There is relatively little alliteration

(use of the same sound or letter at the beginning of adjacent words) in The Road Not Taken. The only example I found was a the end of the middle line of the second verse: “wanted wear”.

What is the figurative meaning of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost?

What Is the Figurative Meaning of “The Road Not Taken?” Frost uses the road as

a metaphor for life

: he portrays our lives as a path we are walking along toward an undetermined destination. Then, the poet reaches a fork in the road. The fork is a metaphor for a life-altering choice in which a compromise is not possible.

What is figurative language?

Figurative language makes meaning by

asking the reader or listener to understand something by virtue of its relation to some other thing, action, or image

. Figurative language can be contrasted with literal language, which describes something explicitly rather than by reference to something else.

Are there any allusions in The Road Not Taken?


There aren't really any allusions in this poem

. In the poem, The Road Not Taken, there are four stanza's with five lines each. Few rhymes occur, such as in the first stanza, lines one, three and four rhyme with the words, wood, stood and could. Lines three and four make a couplet.

Thus, to present his views, Frost makes use of several stylistic devices, such as

hyperbole, consonance, alliteration, antithesis, metaphors, images, and allusions

. Moreover, the author uses figurative language in order to enrich the meaning of his poem.

The poetic device used in the description of the road is

metaphor

.

  • “Bill is an early bird.”
  • “Life is a highway.”
  • “Her eyes were diamonds.”

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the start of a series of words in succession whose purpose is to provide an audible pulse that gives a piece of writing a lulling, lyrical, and/or emotive effect.

An extended metaphor is

a version of metaphor that extends over the course of multiple lines, paragraphs, or stanzas of prose or

. Extended metaphors build upon simple metaphors with figurative language and more varied, descriptive comparisons.

The two roads symbolize

the choices that one has to make in life

. It is very important to make the right choice because we can never retrace our path and go back. One road would lead on to another and there is no coming back.

  • The warrior has a heart of stone.
  • Love is a battlefield.
  • Baby, you are my sunshine.
  • Chaos is a friend of the legislator.
  • I am drowning in a sea of grief.
  • My roommate is going through a rollercoaster of emotions.
  • “The sun smiled down on us.”
  • ‘The story jumped off the page.”
  • “The light danced on the surface of the water.”

Scrooge is a rich banker in Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol and he's well-known for being stingy with his money. Describing someone as ‘a total Scrooge'

alludes to the idea that they are overly careful with money

.

Answer:

Metaphor

– The whole poem is an extended metaphor and the road acts as a metaphor for life. Personification – The fork in the woods refers to the life decisions one has to make.

Frost uses many similes in his poem, one example is: “

Mixed ready to begin the morning right, like the ingredients of a witches' broth

” He is comparing the flower, moth, and spider to the ingredients of a witche's broth.


Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental images

. Specifically, using vivid or figurative language to represent ideas, objects, or actions.

Personification is

a poetic device where animals, plants or even inanimate objects, are given human qualities

– resulting in a poem full of imagery and description.

Some poetic devices included in “The Road Not Taken” are the assonance in the poem's first line, emphasizing the “o” sound in “roads” and “yellow,” the alliteration in the third line of the second stanza with “wanted wear,” and, within this same line, the personification in the road “it was grassy and wanted wear.” The …

Amira Khan
Author
Amira Khan
Amira Khan is a philosopher and scholar of religion with a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology. Amira's expertise includes the history of philosophy and religion, ethics, and the philosophy of science. She is passionate about helping readers navigate complex philosophical and religious concepts in a clear and accessible way.