Imagery and symbolism in Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

¶ … Robert Frost as a poet and this poem on literature and culture

Through the use of imagery and symbolism, Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken" serves as an allegory of every young person's choices at the beginning of adulthood

Explanation of Frost's imagery

Examples of imagery, and the importance of nature

Imagery connotations

Connection between nature imagery's implications and a the proposed allegory

Textual evidence of this connection

Explanation of Frost's Symbolism

Explanation of how Frost's symbolism works with his imagery

Examples of Frost's symbolism

Explanation of what Frost's symbolism stands for Frost's symbols as building blocks of the larger allecory

Conclusion: Frost's imagery and symbolism working together to create an allegory of every young person's choice at the beginning of adulthood

Poem Analysis

In Robert Frost's poem, the Road Not Taken, the author uses a combination of imagery and sound to create verses that both glorify nature and explain the nature of humankind's indecision. At the beginning of the poem, Frost's narrator is in a contemplative mood, faced with the decision of which oath to take. Frost uses nature imagery, noting the "yellow" wood and the "grassy" path to allow further that contemplation for the reader as both paths were "just as fair" (Frost 1, 6, 8). But by the end of the poem, the narrator has made a decision to choose a specific path in this beautiful wood, "the one less traveled by" (Frost 19), and has had a significant change in mood. He is now content and grateful for his decision, remarking, "and that has made all the difference" (Frost 20). The body of the poem, therefore, allows readers insight into the narrators mind as he or she makes this decision, as he or she realizes that this moment will never again return. Readers are made to feel that they are actually with the narrator as he or she makes his decision by the rhyme scheme of the poem, which is abaab for most lines, and periodic assonance, sound techniques that quickly carry the reader from verse to verse.