Death of a Naturalist, The Road not taken and Not My best side

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Death of a Naturalist, The Road not taken and Not My best side

This poem is a fertile mixture of imagery, sounds and an impression created by nature on a person's mind. Heaney feels an outstanding feel of the physical wonders of nature. The poet vividly describes a childhood experience that precipitates a change in the boy from the receptive and protected innocence of childhood to the fear and uncertainty of adolescence.

Death of naturalist has emotional images, because it is the poet’s memory and he is reminiscing. Heaney uses a number of poetic devices to create images. He uses language such as ‘swelters’ and ‘punishing sun’ to create an image of the hot summer that he remembered. The poet brings nature into the poem with the metaphor ‘blue bottles’.

The first line, "two roads diverged into a yellow wood," starts off the poem explaining 2 choices available to the author in life, using the extended metaphors of "roads" and "wood." As well, the word "yellow" is symbolism for the uncertainty Frost has in making his choice.

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In the line "And sorry I could not travel both", the word 'both' immediately indicates that Frost wanted to take both the paths, but being 'one traveller', he had to make a choice. The choice, it is clearly shown, was not an easy one "…long I stood and looked down as far as I could…"

In the last stanza the narrator seems content with his choice yet he tells of it with a sigh: not so much a regretful sigh but a speculative one, ‘I shall be telling this with a sigh.’ He is resolving himself to the ...

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