Answer:
In "The Road", Helene Johnson uses a wide variety of figurative language to create a sense of dread and despair that we feel in the face of the "road". Her use of figurative language includes metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and allusion. For example, in a metaphorical comparison between the narrator and her child, she says:
"My little girl was so beautiful it made my heart ache." (Johnson 4)