Robert Frost wrote “The Road not Taken” poem in an ambiguous way, allowing the readers to evaluate the choices they have in life, whether to take a personal route or follow the majority. The poem describes life as a journey where an individual need to make choices. Frost largely uses metaphors to pass his message.
Key Metaphors
One of the dominant metaphors in the poem is the use of roads. Frost begins by describing two roads that diverge into a yellow woodland. The used roads in the poem symbolize life and the various options it offers to the passers who dare to trod it. The description of the two roads is dominant all through the poem. Another metaphor used in the poem is the fork on the road ( Frost, 2002) . The poet has strategically chosen to place the fork in the symbolism of the road creates the meaning of varied choices in life. A fork has many endings, and so is life.
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Meanings of The Metaphors to Readers of The Poem
Frost has used metaphors to develop various meanings of the poem. The yellow woods are used by the poet to symbolize a lack of resources in life, or showing that someone was approaching a hostile environment. The yellow wood symbolizes the lack of many opportunities in life (Rasse, Onysko & Citron, 2019). The fact that the two roads entered the woods means that life offers little opportunities only for those who are bold enough to pursue. An individual has to evaluate the available choices and make a decision
How the Metaphors Enrich the Poem the Meaning of The Poem
The poem "The road not taken" has adopted the use of metaphor to develop its meaning. Right from the title of the poem itself, "the road not taken," the title symbolizes the way of life that many people ignore (Qu, 2018). The description of the two roads and the way they had different features develops the meaning that different choices in life implicate different results.
References
Frost, R. (2002). The road not taken: A selection of Robert Frost's poems . Macmillan.
Qu, W. (2018). Do Metaphors Mean or Point? Davidson's Hypothesis Revisited. In Sensory perceptions in language, embodiment and epistemology (pp. 59-74). Springer, Cham.
Rasse, C., Onysko, A., & Citron, F. (2019). Conceptual metaphors in poetry interpretation: A psycholinguistic approach. Language and Cognition.
