Secondly, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way / I doubt if I should ever come back” also shows the use of metaphor to describe how life cannot be altered, that once you have chosen a way, you must keep walking regardless of anything that will interfere with you.

Firstly, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” metaphorically connects to how a person’s life would be if he were confronted with different choices. Some quotes use rhetorical devices to show a better understanding of the usage of language. When you make a decision to go on one path, you cannot help but consider the consequences of taking the other. He connects this idea with his life from the future, claiming that he will face the same kind of struggle when it comes to making life-long decisions. Then, he decided to take the other path that went with his heart, assuming it was the better of the two since the path looked “grassy” and “wanted wear.” The speaker exclaims that he would come back and take the road he didn’t take on another day, but he wasn’t sure if he should. He says he looked down one of the roads, but it was so long and went through dense undergrowth, an area with low-lying vegetation, shrubs, or small trees, that it was impossible to see the end of it. He probably wanted to go both ways however, with only himself, it was not possible. The speaker’s life was metaphorically related to a journey filled with turns and twists.Īt the beginning of the poem, the speaker the vastness of the forest, in which the path they were taking forked into two. This poem talks about an important life choice to be made. “The Road Not Taken” was written by the famous American poet Robert Frost in 1916.

The road not taken