Throughout the poem, Frost uses images that may be interpreted as either quite simple and direct or involved and general. For example, by interpreting images such as "Two roads... in a yellow wood," the "undergrowth," as well as the rest of the poem very specifically, one would see a simple story: A young man is walking down a road until he comes to a point where the road forked. The man must decide which path to take, one that is very worn, or "one less traveled by." He decides to take the less traveled path and keep "the first for another day." Looking back on this situation, the narrator feels his decision has changed his life forever.
On the other hand, Frost can be using the images presented in the poem in a very involved and general way. Images of the poem serve as a metaphor for life. Through the poem, Frost is defining life as a series of decisions. Some of these decisions may, at the time, be thought of as insignificant. By comparison others can be thought of as very significant. Frost argues that a decision’s significance at the time is not really important, for any choice will change one's life. Every day, people, including the narrator of the poem, are presented with "Two roads" that diverge "in a yellow wood." These roads are not concrete or physical, but rather represent choices. The fact that one road is "grassy and wanted wear" while the other is commonly traversed shows the reader that some choices require one to choose something that is not commonly sought or to do something that is not commonly done. The total of these decisions leads the reader, down a new path: a path the narrator himself created. The narrator comes to the realization that every decision affects him.
The narrator also comes to the realization that once a choice is made, it is almost impossible to change that choice: "Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."
The structure also reinforces the theme of Frost's poem. The poem is written in four stanzas with five lines per stanza. In this balanced form, the poem conforms to a set of rules that Frost has presented. This pattern creates a very rhythmic and flowing poem. That carries the reader from line to line, stanza to stanza. Underneath this rhyme scheme lies a strict rule for the syllables in each line as well. The lines alternate between eight and nine syllables. This provides a contrast since rhyming lines do not necessarily contain the same number of syllables. This choice by Frost pulls the reader into the poem, but maintains the thought-like atmosphere as the narrator reminisces about his life at the decisions that he made and their results.
In his perhaps best-known poem, Frost recognizes something that people should realize. The simple picture of a man deciding which path to follow is suddenly changed into a description of life by the mastery of Frost's poetic hand. No matter how small a decision appears to be at the time that it is made, that decision will affect a person's life forever, or as Frost puts it, each and every choice will make all the difference.