figurative language in the road not taken

The whole poem is an extended metaphor for life (the road) and the choices we must make along the way (the divergent paths).Within this are smaller metaphors, such as the dark path as a metaphor for our inability to see into the future. Most obviously, the poet employs metaphor and extended metaphor. In the poem ‘ The Road Not Taken,’ Robert Frost uses figurative language to enrich its meaning. The irony can be seen because neither road is less traveled, and there is really no way to determine which path is the right one to take. He thinks that in the future, ‘ages and ages hence,’ he will say that he took the road less traveled, even though in reality both paths look about the same.Whenever the speaker tells the story of this choice, it will be ‘with a sigh,’ which we could understand to be because he is changing the truth of what really happened.

In the last stanza, the speaker imagines a time far in the future when he will describe the details of this day, standing at the fork in the road. Verbal irony is an aspect of figurative language in which what the speaker says is the opposite of what is in his or her mind.This irony can be seen coming to play at the end of the poem. In ‘The Road Not Taken’, we could also interpret a sense of irony, specifically, verbal irony. The imagery of the language really helps paint a picture in the reader’s mind. When we are told both paths ‘equally lay/ in leaves no step had trodden black,’ we can picture the ground with its fresh blanket of leaves, as yet undisturbed by travelers.

There is a strong image of the light disappearing into the dark. When the speaker looks down one path as far as he can, until it ‘bent in the undergrowth,’ we can picture the path disappearing into some dense forest grasses. We see the surrounding woods from the point of view of the speaker, stopped at a fork in the road, alone in nature. One can almost feel the crisp, cool air and see the brilliant colors in the trees. We know that it is autumn, and we have many sensations associated with this. The descriptions of the ‘yellow wood’ and ‘grassy’ paths give us the sense of a beautiful, natural setting. Imagery is figurative language that appeals to the reader’s senses. Autumn often symbolizes our later years, and in this case the symbolism helps us envision the speaker as an older person who has spent many years on the road of life. The fact that this poem is set in autumn, indicated by the fact that the leaves are yellow, can also be seen as a symbol. The fork in the road is symbolic of major life choices. The road is a symbol for the journey of life. In ‘The Road Not Taken,’ many of the examples of metaphor are also symbols. Symbolism is figurative language that infuses literal things with symbolic meaning. Finally, in lines 13-15, the speaker realizes he will never be able to come back to the place where the two roads split: Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.We can read this as a metaphor for life-changing decisions that forever alter our path. In line 6, the speaker suddenly decides to take the path he has not been examining: Then took the other, as just as fair,This can be seen as a metaphor for making a spur-of-the moment decision in life. For example, in lines 4-5, the road becomes a metaphor for the future: And looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth The speaker looks down the path and can only see so far, in the same way that we can’t see the consequences of our choices in the future.

The fork in the road is a metaphor for the choices we must make as we navigate our path.Within the larger extended metaphor are smaller ones. The road in the poem is a metaphor for life and the path we take through it. In fact, the metaphor applies throughout the entire poem, which makes it an extended metaphor if you’re being picky about it. Metaphor is probably this poem’s most obvious example of figurative language. In this lesson we will break down some of the figurative language in Robert Frost’s famous poem ‘ The Road Not Taken.’ MetaphorĪ metaphor is an implicitly made comparison between two seemingly unlike things. * All Partners were chosen among 50+ writing services by our Customer Satisfaction Team

Figurative language in the road not taken