Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking"
In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, Robert Frost has cleverly disguised many symbols and allusions to enhance the meaning of the poem. One must understand the parallel to understand the central theme of the poem. The apple mentioned in the poem could be connected to the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. It essentially is the beginning of everything earthly and heavenly, therefore repelling death. To understand the complete meaning of Frost’s poem one needs to be aware that for something to be dead, it must have once had life. Life and death are common themes in poetry, but this poem focuses on what is in between, life’s missed experiences and the regret that the speaker is left with.
Regret
…show more content…
The reverence with which he speaks of these opportunities, give the reader the sense that the speaker is now looking back on his life and suddenly realizes the importance of this lost fruit.
The speaker then goes on to say that “For all that struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, went surely to the cider-apple heap as of no worth” (33-36). The bruises on the fruit represent the mistakes or misused chances, maybe even failure, but the fact that these bruised apples considered worthless and discarded seems to be an epiphany to the speaker. He is realizes that while these apples were bruised, cider still came from them. The discarded apples act as metaphors for all of the mistakes that he has made in his life, and he now understands that they are in fact not worthless, as much knowledge can be gained from examining one’s mistakes.
The reason for the speaker’s sudden surge of regret seems to be looming death, for he states in the very first line, “My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree toward heaven still” (1-2). This reference to heaven is the first evidence that the speaker thinks he is going to die. At this point in the poem the references to death or the end of life are rather peaceful, as exemplified by the statement. “But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night” (6-7). Though the words, “winter”, “sleep”, and “night” typically represent death, they do not necessarily invoke a
The speaker's depression stems mainly from his unwanted responsibility and feeling of regret. The basic conflict in the poem, which is resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the woods and the drudgery of life and responsibility outside of the woods. "And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep" (line 15-16).
“I push my cart away, toward the apples and pears of my adulthood, their nearly seedless ripeness predictable and bittersweet.” This quote is foreshadowing that as she matures the joy of a childhood and the sweetness of Puerto Rico, which she represented as a sweet and juicy Guava in the prologue, would soon be
For instance, the words of these and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground,” because she had heard seeds saying that each other as they passed. For having her endured of loveless and thankless marriage with Logan, Her sympathy for anything that might encounter hardship in life and gaining more courage in herself makes her remind of her lovely experience under the pear tree especially the seeds.
Winter is a time of cold, when forests die and animals hide from the shrieking winds and biting cold. Winter is a time for survival against the odds. How apt that the speaker is struggling against the "lovely, dark and deep" woods to remember that he has "miles to go before [he] sleep[s]." The "easy wind" calls to him, and the "downy flake" beckons him to a comfortable sleep. If the speaker had paused on a bright summer day, the sleep might be just a short rest, but the poem is set on the "darkest evening of the year" while the "woods fill up with snow," and any rest taken in the "lovely, dark and deep" woods would result in the eternal sleep of death (474).
Written in hendecasyllabic meter (11 syllables per line) and unrhymed verse, the poem seems to be an easy read. It uses words so ordinary any reader could go through it without having to stop for the meaning. The persona tells of his experience of looking down into wells and being ridiculed all the time by people who could arguably be his enemies, or his friends who know better than he. "Always wrong to the light," the persona never sees what he is there, in the first place, for - the truth. Instead, he sees his own
In "Wild Grapes," Robert Frost demonstrates the complex thoughts and struggles of a woman who lives her life, wishing that she had gained a knowledge that would have made her life different. At the same time, she hopes to preserve the exhilarating way she lives her life. Through the use of character portrayal, metaphor, symbolism, and diction, Robert Frost suggests to the reader that although people know that they should prepare themselves to walk through life, they still listen to their hearts, which causes them to be unprepared for what lies ahead of them. The poem starts with the woman telling a story from her youth, which is engraved traumatically in her mind.
In Eudora Welty’s novel, The Golden Apples, the author presents a combination of short stories to give the readers an insight into the intricacies of human relationships. In doing so, in “June Recital,” Welty utilizes the separation technique, once again, to give multiple perspectives depending on the different time periods and characters. Moreover, by implementing the textual structure and significance of the MacLain house from the “Shower of Gold,” the two stories, although separate, have a strong bond and share similar significance to one another. As a result, with dense and detailed descriptions and vernacular languages, Welty succeeds in providing the reader with a three-dimensional analysis of the events which occur in the “June
why he stopped, may be he doesn’t know himself. May be, he is comparing the beauty of nature to something, but on a symbolic level, the snow strongly reminds me that the poem is set in winter, and which is also widely represented as the image of death.
Poems are one of the oldest forms of literary expression often times including complex themes. The poem “Come in” by Robert Frost is no exception. The poem provides us with his experience going into the woods, which represent death. The theme of the poem is a description of Frost’s encounter with his personal feelings and emotions, in which he uses “the woods” as a symbol to express what he is feeling. In the poem “Come In”, Robert Frost’s symbolism via birds, and light, imagery of the woods, constant use of metaphors and similes, line breaks, rhyme, and overall sad tone, illustrates the darkness of his thoughts, feelings, and general experiences in his desire to
Frost also uses the trees in this poem to represent a way to get away from the cares and trials of life on Earth. He talks of getting away and coming back to start over as if climbing “towards heaven”. He desires to be free from it all, but then he says that he is afraid that the fates might misunderstand and take him away to never return. This is like most of us today. We want to go to Heaven, but we don’t want to die to get there.
Robert Frost’s poetic techniques serve as his own “momentary stay against confusion,” or as a buffer against mortality and meaninglessness in several different ways; in the next few examples, I intend to prove this. Firstly, however, a little information about Robert Frost and his works must be provided in order to understand some references and information given.
"After Apple-Picking" is a dream vision, and from the outset it proposes that only labor can penetrate to the essential facts of natural life. These include, in this case, the discovery of the precarious balances whenever one season shifts to another, the exhaustions of the body, and the possible consequences of "falling," which are blemish and decay. When the penetration of "facts" or of matter occurs through labor, the laborer, who may also be the poet, becomes vaguely aware that what had before seemed solid and unmalleable is also part of a collective "dream" and partakes of myth. This is in part what is signified by Emerson's paradigm at the beginning of "Language" in Nature: "1. Words are signs of natural facts. 2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts. 3. Nature is the symbol of spirit." The penetrating power of labor can be evinced in "apple-picking" or in writing or reading about it, and any one of these activities brings us close to seeing how apples and all that surround them can be symbolic of spirit. The easiness of voice movement and vocabulary in the poem will seem at odds with deeper possibilities only to those who do not share Frost's perception, following Emerson and Thoreau, that the possibilities are simply there to be encountered. When at the
Poetry is considered to be a representational text in which one explores ideas by using symbols. Poetry can be interpreted many different ways and is even harder to interpret when the original author has come and gone. Poetry is an incredible form of literature because the way it has the ability to use the reader as part of its own power. In other words, poetry uses the feelings and past experiences of the reader to interpret things differently from one to another, sometimes not even by choice of the author. Two famous poets come to mind to anybody who has ever been in an English class, Robert Frost and E.E. Cummings. Both of these poets have had numerous famous pieces due to the fact that they both
The night symbolized death, and the walk was the person's journey to find their lost life. This poem was somewhat disturbing to me. I thought of a lost soul, thirsting to finish a mission that was not completed in life. Frost depicts death in a frightening manner with the contents of this piece of work.
Robert Frost is perhaps one of America's best poets of his generation. His vivid images of nature capture the minds of readers. His poems appear to be simple, but if you look into them there is a lot of insight. Robert Frost spoke at John F. Kennedy's inauguration. He is the only poet to have had the opportunity to speak at a presidential inauguration. Through his poetry people learn that Robert Frost is a complicated and intellectual man who has a place in many American hearts. (Richards P.10)