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Makayla Williams, Joseph Buzan

Mr. Anderson

English 1

5-24-10

Compare and Contrast Essay

The Road Not Taken and South Bound on the Freeway

There are many poems that are similar and there are poems that do not resemble each other

whatsoever. The poems South Bound on the Freeway, by May Swenson, and The Road Not

Taken, by Robert Frost, are two poems that have both similarities and differences. Throughout

this essay I will be comparing the differences and similarities of the elements, Imagery, Similes,

Metaphors, Personification, Meter, Rhyme, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, and Tone.

First of all, The Road Not Taken has no known Similes, where as South Bound on the

Freeway has a few similes. One of these similes is “…., like inches, down the marked tapes.” A

simile is basically two dissimilar things that are compared using a word such as, like, as, than, or

resembles. When you read South Bound on the Freeway you may notice that it does not have a

verse that describes two dissimilar things using any of the words mentioned above.

Secondly, South Bound on the Freeway and The Road Not Taken are similar when it

comes to rhyming. Both poems have approximate rhyming, although The Road Not Taken also
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has full rhyme. One example of an approximate rhyme from South Bound on the Freeway is,

“Through the transparent parts you can see their guts” This is an Approximate Rhyme because

the “ts” is in both “parts” and “guts.” An example of a full rhyme from The Road Not Taken is

“Two roads diverged in the yellow wood,-And sorry I could not travel both-And be one traveler,

long I stood-.” We can tell it is a full rhyme because only one letter is different.

Imagery is an important element. It can give the reader a feel to what is happening. You can

relate to the poem more so when the writer describes the smell, sight, touch, taste or the sound of

something. The authors of the poems, “South Bound on the Freeway” and “The Road not Taken”

use a great deal of imagery throughout their poems, sight being the main type of imagery used.

For example, a verse from South Bound on the Freeway that uses imagery is, “Through the

transparent parts you can see their guts.” We know that the writer of this poem is describing

what she is seeing, which makes you be able to relate to the poem more. Another example of

imagery from the poem, “The Road not Taken” is, “And looked down one as far as I could.” It is

clear that the writer of the poem is describing looking down one of the roads, which would make

the imagery sight.

When reading a poem something that you may ask yourself is if the poem is free verse or meter.

When reading South Bound on the Freeway I concluded that the poem is free verse. A way that

you can tell if a poem is free verse is if the verses of the poems are different lengths and have no

set pattern of meter or rhythm. When I read The Road not Taken I realized that this poem had an

iambic meter. This means that these two poems are dissimilar in the fact that one has meter and
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one does not. Thus being one of the several dissimilarities of the poems South Bound on the

Freeway and The Road not Taken.

The other thing that these poems do not have in common is Alliteration. South Bound on the

freeway contains Alliteration while The Road not Taken does not. Alliteration is the repetition

of the same consonant sound in several words. For example in South Bound on the Freeway

when it says, “Their feet are round and roll.” “Round and roll” would be an example of

alliteration.

The last element in these two poems is tone. Tone could be described as the attitude of a poem.

For example the poem, The Road not Taken, has several different types of tones throughout the

poem. In the beginning of the poem the tone is more of confusion and then as you read on

towards the middle of the poem it changes to a gloomy tone and the whole poem finishes with a

tone of confidence. In the poem, Southbound on the freeway the overall tone is observant,

focusing on every detail. Now the tone for these two poems don’t have a lot in common, possibly

towards the beginning of The Road not Taken when it seems to have a confusion tone, the writer

describes a lot of detail and it seems to be observant. Which is similar to Southbound on the

freeway, other than this the poems have very little similarities when it comes to tone.

Thus, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and Southbound on the Freeway by May Swenson

shares similarities when it comes to rhyming, imagery, and tone.

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Work Cited

Swenson, May. “South Bound on the Freeway”. Elements of Literature: Third Course. Ed.
Kathleen Daniel. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003.

Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken” Elements of Literature: Third Course. Ed. Kathleen
Daniel. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003.