After Apple-Picking

Hello friend!

 I have brought you a new blog post today. Happy reading!

After Apple-Picking is a beautiful poem by my favourite poet, Robert Frost. It isn’t a very well-known poem—at least, it’s definitely not as famous as Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening or The Road Not Taken—but that doesn’t mean it lacks in power and beauty. Despite the innocent and sweet [and mouth-watering] title, After Apple-Picking is a very sombre poem; it revolves around sleep, hard work and dreaming—but not in a sweet way. The speaker gets so exhausted by the time he’s done picking those apples that he simply drops right where he is, and the end is left ambiguous as he wonders whether he’s really just falling asleep [he asks himself: “is this some mere human sleep, or a longer sleep coming on?”]. This poem is also set during winter [undoubtedly Frost’s favourite season. Winter seems to have held a deep significance for him].

As with all of Frost’s poems, After Apple-Picking appears to be a simple poem about the speaker’s hard work; he spent all day picking apples and, though he’s done now, he still sees apples floating before his eyes [large, juicy, red apples… slurp], still feels the ache in his foot as if he is standing on a ladder, still laments the fact that the flawless apples which tumble to the ground have to be consigned to the cider press. Simple. But… what about the deeper meaning of this poem? The speaker does not explicitly tell us when the poem takes place, but it is clearly winter, as he states that the grass is frosty, the water in the trough has become a sheet of ice, and the “presence” of Lady Winter hangs in the air [like sharp icicles]. Winter symbolises death; which means that death is coming for the speaker, and—what’s more—he knows it’s coming, and accepts it with quiet resignation. Also, because of the loose style and the varying rhythms and tenses of the poem, the reader doesn’t even know if the speaker is awake; there is a possibility that he is dreaming [so the entire poem takes place in a dream—his dream—and he’s palmed it off on us.] He was so engrossed in his work that he’s now reliving the day. Throughout the poem, the speaker complains of exhaustion, and asserts that he “was well upon my way to sleep”, even before he’d finished picking all the apples. [That’s some exhaustion he’s got there… please make sure you don’t overwork yourself to this extent.]

There’s a deeper, darker explanation for this poem—as I said before, Winter represents death. I know I said that death is creeping up on the speaker, but I’m going to explain in detail over here; the speaker’s distracted musings on apple picking are the feverish hallucinations of a man on Death’s doorstep. He states that he is “done with apple-picking now”—he has completed his work, satisfied himself, and fulfilled his obligations to Mother Nature. Even as he begins to sink into the abyss of a deep, long slumber, he quietly wonders if he is dying, and not just sleeping. To him, sleep and death don’t seem much different—especially during Winter. The end is left open for interpretation by the reader; personally, I think that the speaker really did pass into the other world, as he was quite weak and cold; it seems like he was only soldiering on for that one day, and felt that he was ready to die after he’d finished his task. However, that’s just my interpretation. The best thing about this poem is that it doesn’t have a decisive conclusion; I rather like ambiguous endings.  What do you think?

Conclusively, I understand that this poem is kinda confusing [haha. It’s meant to be. It twists and turns and randomly leaps from one topic to another, but I’m glad it’s not very easy to analyse—I like challenges. It took me some time to figure it out. I like the way the poet draws a thin line between sleep and death; even I believe that there is a very fine and brittle connection between life, sleep and death—people are likely to pass away in their sleep. The connection is like a thread of a spider’s web; one main thread holds the web together, supported by smaller threads. When the main strand snaps, the web will be destroyed, right? Because the one holding it together is no longer there. It’s the same with a human life. When the thread which we call “life” breaks, our soul quietly passes on.

…Enough with the philosophical thoughts. I fulfilled my promise—I wrote on After Apple-Picking!!! I hope you liked this article. I know it’s not a very long post, but I’ve done my best to comment on this exquisite poem. I tried hard—and here is the result!  Please let me know your thoughts on this post!

That’s all for now. I’ll write on Birches [another poem by Robert Frost. It’s one of my favourites] next week! See you next time…

Thank you!