The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Robert Frost analyses the concept of journeys in his poem ‘The Road Not Taken’, using allegory as a technique to convey a message of an inner and emotional journey. These journeys are concealed by a physical journey which Frost writes of; one of choosing between two roads in the woods during autumn. Robert Frost explores the difficulty involved in choosing between two ‘roads’ – one of which he must take in order to continue on the journey of life. In ‘The Road Not Taken’, he also discusses his emotions after he had chosen and set out on a path, which ultimately leads to him proclaiming that he has no regrets. Frost successfully conveys all this through the use of vivid imagery, metaphors, and a build-up of the personae judging on his use of language as well as capturing the mental processes of the character. The physical journey acts as an allegory in ‘The Road Not Taken’. This journey is one of a man literally coming to two roads diverging in the woods. We can tell it is autumn by the description of the woods being ‘yellow’, and the persona expresses his regret over not being able to travel both paths. As one traveller, he stood for as long as he could, and peered down one as far as possible, hoping the get a glimpse of what that road held for him. Eventually, he chooses one, as it seems to have been less travelled on, and he isn’t satisfied following the normal route. He tells himself that he’ll come back and take the other one another day, yet deep inside he knows that it is unlikely he will have the opportunity to do so. The speaker admits that in the far future, when he thinks back to this choice he had to make, he would know that choosing the road less people took had made a difference. The physical journey of this poem holds many uses of imagery, such as ‘to where it bent in the undergrowth’ and ‘in leaves no steps had trodden black’, which creates a vivid image for the audience. The persona adapts a voice of a calm, rational, collected, and very concise