ASSIGNMENT

Submitted by: Asifa Iqbal

Roll No. 01

Class: MA English

Semester: 4th

Session: 2013-2015

Submitted to: Mrs Khoula Pervaiz

Subject: American Literature

Topic: Critical Appreciation of

“After Apple Picking” by

Robert Frost

The Women University Multan

 Critical Appreciation of
“After Apple Picking” By Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost stands as a towering personality among the

American poets not only of the twentieth but probably all the
centuries to come. He can be regarded as the crown on the head of
American poetry.
"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought
has found words." ― “Robert Frost”

Robert Frost is basically a landscape poet. His poetry is always

enriched with the depiction of agrarian and natural scenes. This
extract “After Apple picking” comes from “North of Boston”, a
selection of poems from the eminent American poet Robert Frost.
“After Apple Picking", is a stimulating nature-lyric poem giving an
account of simple garden activity. Here he presents a simple theme
that how after a hard day of work, the apple farmer is completely
fatigued and lulled to sleep.
Robert Frost is known as the Wordsworth of the New England due to
his bent towards the natural scenes of nature in his poetry. Nature
figures prominently in Frost’s poetry, his poems usually include a
moment of interaction or encounter between a human being and a
natural subject, like the apples, in this case. The poem gives us many
hints about the pastoral activity. The description of the apple trees, the
apples and the frosty scene of the evening speak fully of the poet’s
love of nature. He has used pastoral imagery as:
“Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end.”
The images used in the poem have also been taken from natural
sights. The words like apples, blossom, apples’ fragrance, harvest,
and snow have been taken from the world of nature. We can say that
this is a beautiful lyric on the poet’s love for nature.
Then like the Romanticist Poets of England the poem, ”After apple
Picking” is written from the first-person point of view, where the
poet uses the first-person pronoun “I” throughout the poem to
describe the emotions ,thoughts and feelings of the speaker who is
tired of picking apples as he says:

“For I have had too much

of apple-picking: I am overtired”

If we examine the poem linguistically, we come to know that in the

poem, Robert Frost breaks in and out of the traditional structure.
Almost half poem,(25)lines are written in standard iambic
pentameter, and the rest (17) lines end with rhymed words. This
drifting structure symbolizes the switch between the consciously
awakened state and a dream-like state, which the narrator is
constantly dwelling on. The speaker is in the state of sleep after the
day’s hard work, as he says:

“I am drowsing off”
Though Robert Frost insists that the poem is written purely in context
of a rural aspect and it shows nothing more than the beauty of nature
prevailing upon human mind, intellect and will, yet the poem does
allude to certain extended meanings. As Cleanth Brooks says:
“The concrete experience of apple-picking is communicated firmly
and realistically, but the poem invites a metaphorical extension.”
Therefore after the poem was published in the year 1915, it has been
interpreted in several different ways, and has even caused a lot of
debate among experts about what the theme of the poem really is. So
the poem appears to be the extended metaphor .As Frost himself says:
“There are many other things I have found myself saying about
poetry, but the chiefest of these is that it is metaphor, saying one
thing and meaning another.”

First of all the poem opens with the metaphor of “Two-pointed

ladder” as the poet says:
“My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
toward heaven still”
Therefore the mention of the ladder standing upright, in the direction
of Heaven, hints at the Biblical story of Jacob's ladder, where Jacob
dreams of a ladder that reached Heaven.
According to another interpretation, the activity of apple picking
may be taken to symbolize the tasks of life. The ladder pointing to the
sky symbolizes the high and unlimited human ambitions. The apples
stand for worldly interests, while the half-filled drum represents the
achieved as compared to the unachieved in the human life. The state
of mind that the speaker seems to be in, is one full of regrets. He says:
“And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough”
These lines suggest that perhaps there are still some desires which
remain unfulfilled in his life. The half-filled barrel in the poem stands
for the heart of man that still contains many desires, ambitions and
hopes that are unfulfilled. But he is very much tired and exhausted
that he feels drowsiness. As he says:
“But I am done with apple-picking now.”

Here he introduces the theme of death as he seems to be on

reflecting point and recalling his life experiences as he says:
“Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end”.
Here we see that he is reflecting back on his life. Some experiences
are clearer than others. When the speaker says, "stem end and
blossom end", we see that the speaker has looked at all his life
experiences from top to bottom. He can now see the "russet" parts of
the skin or the wrinkles or bruises on the apples, the bruises meaning
the mistakes that were made.
Then in the same reflective mood he says that his way of looking to
the world has also changed, as he says:
“I got from looking through a pane of glass
It melted, and I let it fall and break.”
He means to say that, when he was a child, he could not understand
many things. His way of looking at the things was very immature but
then as the ice kept on melting, meaning with his growing age he
started getting clear about many things.
After Apple-Picking" has often been compared to Keats’ "Ode to
Autumn," as if it were primarily a celebration of harvest. But here
the harvest of apples has a deeper universal meaning as it may refer to
the harvest of any human effort. According to another interpretation,
Apple-picking was a common job in autumn in New England,
therefore, Frost might be hinting toward how he doesn’t like the
monotonous lives he and his people live it is clear from the lines:
“Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired”

Then its elevated diction (quite distinct from anything else in the
book) as well as its images, mood and theme, all suggest a greater
affinity with Keats': Ode to a Nightingale." In that weary, drowsy
poem the speaker longs to escape through art, symbolized by the
nightingale, but here in the poem the poet wants to escape in the
world of sleep. So like the speaker of Keats’ poem, the speaker of
Frost is also seemed to be suffused with the drowsy numbness.

Moreover, "After Apple Picking" by Robert Frost is an ambiguous

poem that should be celebrated for its lack of a definite meaning. As
in the end he introduces the theme of death, though the readers are
not clarified whether this is a temporary sleep or the ultimate (sleep
concerning death) sleep. As he says:
“Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.”
Therefore the critics and the readers have interpreted it in different
ways. According to one interpretation, the poet needs to regenerate
himself, like the hibernating woodchuck, by a long, deathlike winter
sleep, so he will be ready to re-enter the poet's dream world and
achieve another spurt of creativity. As he says:
“For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired”.

As the apples are gathered - and the poem written - he becomes both
physically and mentally exhausted. However according to another
interpretation, in the last line of the poem the author is hinting about
his approaching death. He no longer wants to pick his apples or live
his life; he is tired and knows it is coming to an end. As Cleanth
Brooks says:

“The poem suggests that the sleep is like the sleep of death.”

Now we can conclude that, In "After Apple-Picking" Robert Frost

achieves a perfect fusion of pastoral and poetic labour; on one hand
and the rare blend of simplicity and symbolism on the other.