Diction In The Road Not Taken

Improved Essays
Robert Frost is a firm believer in using happiness to initiate a poem. Sequentially, turning said happiness into a gradual journey of self-acknowledgment and a deeper sense of wisdom. Henceforth, not many people grasp the concept behind Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" at first glance. The story is an assertion of the vital essence of the choices one must make in life's journey and includes an ironic twist of the tendency to struggle with making said choices in life. Frost employs the metaphor of two roads whilst inventing a negative tone through the use of diction and pathos to express the theme that one's choices in life are not always as clean-cut and concrete as other's might think and that in reality they are filled with moments of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, the author retells a story of a group of immigrants who attempted to cross the border from Mexico into America. Throughout the novel, Urrea uses figurative language and syntax to prove the meaning that in order to grow as a community, there needs to be unity; making quick judgements about others can prevent people from uniting together. Towards the beginning of the novel, Urrea describes how the bodies of those who died crossing the border are treated in inspections for reports. He particularly describes how the deceased are referred to and states, “Some reports wittily call these men Juan Does. Jane Doe becomes Juana Doe” (Urrea 36).…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “The Road Not Taken” talks about two choices that an individual has about something and choosing the hard one is more fruitful. In the story there had been two times he could have made choices. The first time was when he went to Newfoundland eleven years ago. He was not very responsible with his actions when he had impregnated Jenny. However, Robert Frost chooses the harder route and is, thus, more successful.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    O Brien Diction Analysis

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages

    On the other hand, thorough readers are able to fully interpret O'Brien's text and its purpose. O’Brien utilizes contrasting diction, complicated syntax, and pathos in his writing to prove to his audience the complexity of war and impact it has on its victims. To begin with, in this quote O’Brien tells of the time a fellow soldier abruptly died. He quickly and in simple terms explains the situation using contrasting diction to demonstrate the complexity of war. Placing a pleasant, happy word such as “laughing” next to a feared word “death” allows the audience to experience the confusion going through the soldiers at the time.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In “The Road Not Taken” the speaker (Frost) describes both roads, he states “long I stood… And looked down one as far as I could… To where it bent in the undergrowth” (Frost, 137). This excerpt can be seen as the roads being a metaphor for the future. When the speaker examines both roads but cannot see beyond the undergrowth, this demonstrates the poet’s interpretation that no one knows what the future holds. As the audience reads further the speaker states “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way” (Frost, 137).…

    • 1245 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Dark Side of Innocence The world is filled with desperation, where survival and self-reliance is the only way to live, and every minute, every second, and every single breath is precious. In an apocalyptic situation, wherein one’s survival is the priority, McCarthy reveals a repentant and ashamed tone towards the evil deeds humans are essentially forced to do for their own survival. In the novel The Road, author Cormac McCarthy utilized forthright diction and significant details to epitomize an apologetic tone when discussing the loss of innocence through one’s lifetime, proving that despite mankind being innately innocent, greed overpowers and induces humanity to eventually lose their purity.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poems use of vague language allows for interpretations about life choices. There are so many choices in life that can lead to different opportunities in the future, but a choice has to be made. "The Road Not Taken" may be interpreted in more than one way. The poem illustrates someone strolling in the woods. The person sees the two roads diverge and is deciding on which road to take.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One might say that their thoughts may be too complex as both poems are superficial, simple and the goals of the poem are clear, proving there is nothing beyond that. Nevertheless, the imagery is deep and creative leaving a lot for the reader to interpret, the symbolism demonstrated in each poem provides insight beyond the poems themselves, and impactful literary devices that show how immersed each poet’s mind are indulged into their writing. The detailed picture Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas create in their poems is due to their enhanced capabilities in using imagery. In “The Road Not Taken” Frost is able to deceive his readers by using two words.…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While looking at Robert Frost’s poems like Fire and Ice and The Road Not Taken one can analyze Frost’s style. In Fire and Ice Frost uses two literal things that take on a figurative meaning to express the true meaning of the poem, fire, and ice. In The Road Not Taken Frost uses the literal situation of choosing between two paths and the figurative language of imaging the journey of taking the two paths to express the true meaning of the poem. Through his literal and figurative topics and ideas, Robert Frost makes the story more complex and have a deeper meaning.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Road Not Taken (Web)

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Road Not Taken (Web) The Road Not Taken is a poem about the interest and motivation to take different experiences in our life. Inside of a forest, the speaker face the decision of taking two roads. One of them is known from the speaker to be a common road, but he decide to take the less traveled and unknown road. From the speaker, it makes a difference to take the other road to have something to say about his life and experiment a new event.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poetry Comparison Essay

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The poems “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, and “Advice To My Son” by J. Peter Meinke each explore themes of how to approach our own lives. Each of these poems takes a different approach, theme and setting to convey their own message while maintaining similar themes. ADD ANOTHER SENTENCE HERE TO LENGTHEN ESSAY. Each of these poems follow a similar idea, about how the choices we make in our lives can affect who we are and where we end up in life, but each goes about it through separate narratives. In Frost’s poem, the narrator is speaking directly to the audience about their experiences, and about how their choices affected them in the long run, as stated with “I took the one less traveled by, /…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken” the writer employs the use of a metaphor to demonstrate the concept of choice. The line, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” symbolizes the very difficult task that the writer is faced with in terms of which way he should proceed. This decision will undoubtedly be a life altering one since there are only two unknown possible outcomes. The choice is presented in the form of one option which has been tested many times before and the other which not many been brave enough to take. There is no turning back once our path is chosen.…

    • 121 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Misunderstood Poems

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Every great poem has an even greater meaning. “The Road Not Taken” is about a person who is deciding which way path to take. This poem is usually misunderstood because many people think that he is trying to decide which path is better, but actually he talks about how each of the paths are pretty much the same. “ Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same” (Frost, 219-220). He is saying that both paths are pretty much equal and used just as frequent as the other.…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction The Road Not Taken, one of the most iconic and globally recognized poems by the great Robert Frost. Written in the year 1915, Frost had just completed a multitude of adventures through the forest in England with his great friend, Edward Thomas, someone who too was caught in the middle between two choices: whether or not to enlist in the war or stay home; some say that Frost’s poem had a major influence on Thomas’s decision to actually enlist in the military, he sadly died two years later. Out of all of the themes in this poem, choice is the probably the one that stands out to readers the most. The reasoning behind this is because Frost, being the brilliant writer he is, strategically used examples, symbols, setting, scheme, and…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The beauty and originality of his work makes it easy to say why so many people read and study his poems. Frost’s poetry demonstrates deep thinking and each poet has a different mood. In The Road Not Taken, the narrator finds himself facing a choice between two different paths. At the beginning, the narrator is unsure of what path to take. The lesson out of this poem is every choice you make will affect the outcome of your life.…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The name of the poem is quoted universally even though some people do not know what the context of the poem is. For instance, “‘The Road Not Taken’ has been used in advertisements for Mentos, Nicorette, the multibillion-dollar insurance company AIG, and the job-search Web site Monster.com, which deployed the poem during Super Bowl XXXIV to great success” (Orr). The point of view of Frost 's poem is telling us that, sometimes, could choose the one that not too many people has chosen. Also, in rhetorical, Frost prefers to use word of choice, symbolic, and metaphor in his poem…

    • 1313 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays