What literary techniques does Frost employ in "The Road Not Taken?"

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" features a first-person speaker recounting a personal anecdote. This means that the speaker is using the first person pronoun "I" and telling a story about a personal experience. These features also make the poem a narrative poem, as it tells a story, rather than a lyric poem.

Further, Frost uses simple diction, alliteration, and a basic rhyme schemeof ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH. The word choice...

Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" features a first-person speaker recounting a personal anecdote. This means that the speaker is using the first person pronoun "I" and telling a story about a personal experience. These features also make the poem a narrative poem, as it tells a story, rather than a lyric poem.

Further, Frost uses simple diction, alliteration, and a basic rhyme scheme of ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH. The word choice is straightforward. Alliteration can be found in some of the lines; for example, "Because it was grassy and wanted wear" (line 8), repeats the beginning "w" sound. 

The speaker describes the two roads using imagery. He discusses each road in turn, especially focuses on how "worn" each road is, meaning how many times travelers have chosen that road over the other. The first three lines present the central conflict of the poem: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both, / And be one traveler, long I stood" deciding which road to take. Once he makes his decision, the speaker expresses this with an exclamatory statement: "Oh, I kept the first for another day!" (12). 

The poem's mood takes a dark turn near the end, when the speaker ponders the irreversible consequences of choosing one path over another. He "doubted if [he] should ever come back," and this doubt means that his decision is irreversible (15). He also says that in the future, he "shall be telling this with a sigh" (16). The speaker's reflections could be said to symbolize or could be said to serve as a metaphor for any decision we make in our lives: ultimately, we choose one path, and we cannot go back and reverse our decision. The choice "has made all the difference" (20).