Question: Show how the poet uses metaphor, imagery and personification, illustrating that there are challenging choices which may initially seem equal but once those decisions are made, they can actually make all the difference.
Answer: In ‘The Road Not Taken’, the poet employs extended metaphor, making the reader to imagine several comparisons. The poet states the two roads diverging in a yellow wood. Literally, there are two roads that fork out in the forest. The roads represent the challenges people have to make in the journey of life. The forest represents life. The forest is yellow indicating the autumn season. The season is a personification of the middle age, when man is mature to make decisions. The fallen leaves represent the oppportunities waiting for us to take in the journey of life. Since, autumn is followed by winter, the poet wants to show that autumn is a time when decisions should be made wisely as we may not get an opportunity to retrace our steps to take the other paths we could have taken but did not. He uses imagery while saying, “And both that morning lay, in leaves no step had trodden.