Imagine that you are driving on a highway and you come to a cross in a road where there is a two-way ahead and you must travel down one of them but you don't know which one to choose. One road appears to be one that many have traveled upon while the other seems somewhat different. Which road do you choose? Do you choose the road that seems most familiar or the one that is less traveled upon? In "A Road Not Taken," Robert Frost's use of persona, tone, imagery, and metaphors allow us to realize the importance of the decision that he was faced with and its relevance not only to the theme of the poem, but to the direction of his life and his decision to be different and choose the "road less traveled upon," which was not expected of him.
We can tell by Frost's reference to himself that the poem is written in the persona of first person, making Frost
the speaker and the decision one that will affect his life. It becomes evident that he stops to weigh his options carefully through in line 3 when he "long [he] stood." At this moment Frost attempts to paint an image in our minds when he says that he "looked down one as far as I could / to where it bent in the undergrowth" (lines 4-5) and when he says that both roads appear "about the same" (line 10) he lets us know that the paths he must choose between are two that are very similar. The first route seems to be the one that is the more common of the two and we are able to support this when Frost states that the other was "grassy and wanted wear," (line 8) this is also a use of imagery in the poem since he is giving you the impression that the second road is the right one for him.
Choosing the road "less traveled upon" gives Frost the opportunity to be unique and choose a pat
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