Langston Hughes And Robert Frost Comparison

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In life a person will have dreams to follow and choices to make, but they should never live in regret. By analyzing how Langston Hughes and Robert Frost use diction, imagery, and metaphor, it is clear that their poems reflect on life choices, dreams and regret. Though both poems have similar topics, their conclusions are somewhat different. Langston Hughes concludes that without dreams, life is meaningless, empty. On the other hand, Robert Frost concludes that life goes on because people usually don’t travel backwards. When someone makes a choice, he or she can’t usually go back in time and make a different choice. Frost is saying that people should never stick to the past but move forward with their lives and never look back. Both poems, …show more content…

The diction in both poems is very descriptive. In Dreams, Hughes repeats the phrase “Hold Fast” to stress that it is very important to hold on to dreams and never let them go. The repetition of of this phrase emphasizes on its meaning, and sounds more dramatic than just saying “hold on to.” The word frozen could just mean frozen but it could also mean that without dreams your life is frozen. In other words, saying that without dreams a person doesn't have much to live for; they don't have a life. Hughes also uses the phrase “barren” which means much more than just an empty field, it means that life without dreams will be unproductive, and people will become couch potatoes with nothing going for them. On the other hand, in The Road Not Taken, the diction describes the poem in great detail and is pretty straightforward. On example of diction is in stanza one, when Frost writes “long I stood.” This phrase implies that the speaker is having a hard time making a decision, for which road to take. It also implies that in life people will have times where making a choice won’t be easy. In stanza two, line two, he says “And having perhaps the better claim.” This phrase perhaps suggests that he is not really sure. In life people will not be sure with what choice to make, but will just have to go with what there guts are telling them to do and go with the flow. If the choice turns out not to be so great, they need to move on with their lives and make new and better choices. Later in stanza 3, he writes “I doubted if I should ever come back”. In other words meaning he’s not sure if he would go back. Frost uses more imagery than Hughes does. Imagery is important in The Road Not Taken because the setting of the poem. Most of imagery is seen when he is telling people about the scenery. For example when

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