The rural New England forms a common setting for many of Frost’s poems. This poem also describes the dreamy experiences of an apple-picker after his hard day’s work of picking apples is over. Just like in other poems, this poem is also filled with deep, subtle meanings about sleep and death. This poem is included in “North of Boston” published in 1914.
The apple-picker felt drowsy and
dreamy after his work. The water in the trough froze into a pane of glass. He
looked at the apple trees through a sheet of frozen ice he picked from the
water trough. The grass appears hoary or frosty. He wonders whether it is a
normal end of the day or something deeper. It is the winter time. The scent of apples
makes him feel strange and drowsy. The apple-picker’s day is over but the task
of apple-picking is not yet complete. The barrel has not yet been filled with apples.
It seems as if the speaker were in a state of confused state of mind because of the onslaught of sleep that sent him into a trance in which everything seemed to have been blurred. “I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight.” The sheet of ice in his hand melted and he allows it to fall down as he is on the verge of falling asleep. In this sleepy state, his dream comprises “an exaggerated re-creation of the sensations of apple-picking” he had done during the day.
“Magnified apples appear and disappear/Stem end and blossom end/And every fleck of russet showing clear. “Apples of an enlarged size appear and disappear everywhere. The speaker sees even the tiniest apples and their colours in his dream. “My in step arch not only keeps the ache/It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.” His feet felt not only pain but also the pressure of the ladder-round. “I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.” As he picks apples, the boughs bend down and with their movement the ladder also seems to sway. A picturesque description of his day’s labour in his dream is given. From the cellar-bin he hears the rumbling sound of carts carrying “load on load of apples.” There are so many apples to admire, to touch, to pick and to lift carefully so as not to let them fall down on the ground and get bruised. If the apples fall down on the ground, they are discarded even if they are not bruised or spiked with stubble. They are set aside to be used for making cider and not fit to be sold as fruits. “But I am done with apple-picking now.” As he has done enough apple-picking, he feels exhausted and seems to be fed up with the bumper harvest that he does not want to have anything more with the apples.
In the concluding lines he guesses as to what will
trouble his sleep. His sleep may be troubled by the thought or awareness of
reality. He contrasts his human sleep with the long winter sleep of wood chuck untroubled
by reality. “Is it a simple sleep or the sleep of death?” The poet guesses
whether his sleep resembles the long sleep of woodchuck or just an ordinary
sleep of human beings. Frost’s use of a long sleep seems
metaphorically suggestive of the long sleep of death or of the shift into the
afterlife, as it differs from a human sleep. But Laurence Perrine argues that
“whatever sleep it is,” it presents “a continuation of earthly activity”.
Either way, this farmer is “done with apple-picking now” as the “Essence of
winter sleep is on the night.”
The harvest of
apples can be read as a harvest of human effort. The poem focuses on the fevered hallucinations
of a tired person who is about to leave the world of reality and tries to
escape into the world of long sleep but his sleep is troubled by the day-long
labour of picking the harvest. The sleep of the wood chuck is the long winter
sleep associated with death. The apple-picker’s day is over but the task of
apple-picking is not yet complete. The barrel has not been filled with apples.
The apples left on the tree represent things he regrets for not having done or achieved
during his life time. The act of apple-picking is an extended metaphor which
represents the speaker’s longing to escape from the worldly troubles by
entering a world of dreams where those troubles are non-existent. The ladder
signifies the speaker’s climb through life towards death or final end. The “two- pointed ladder” is also considered as life and human
career which is similarly difficult to balance
The poet
repeatedly used the word “sleep” to express man’s innate desire for long sleep
free from worldly troubles. The repetition of the word “sleep” highlights the
speaker’s gradual descent into dreaming. 'After Apple Picking' by Robert Frost has
often been compared to Keats' "Ode to Autumn", as if it were
primarily a celebration of the harvest. But 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." The apple-picker in Frost’s “After Apple Picking”, like
Keats, is suffused with drowsy numbness, yet enters the visionary state
necessary to artistic creation; Like Keats, the speaker has a secret longing to
escape from the world of reality and enter the realm of death or like woodchuck
enjoy “a long winter sleep” unperturbed by worldly troubles.
Robert Frost used rhyme that follows
no set pattern. It is basically in iambic pentameter but variation in
line-length is seen. The poem’s shorter lines of (two, three and four feet in
each line) serve to syncopate and sharpen the steady, flowing rhythm of
pentameter. Both rhyme and line-length are varied with subtlety. The wandering
structure allows Frost to emphasize the sense of moving between waking and
dream-like states.
Frost’s use of different tenses and the unworldly tone of the poem with mixed up rhyme add to the drowsy world of slumber where time looks blurred experienced through a sheet of ice. He wants that the rhythm of his poem mirrors the state of mind of the speaker. The poet explores the relationship between human and natural worlds. In this poem the poet also deals with the theme of life and death.
In another shorter poem “Unharvested” the poet gives a
sensuous description of an apple tree the fruits of which have fallen
themselves on the ground forming “one circle of solid red.” The poet passing by
the way was attracted by the scent of fallen apples and thought that enjoying
the smell of ripe apples on the ground does not amount to theft. The apple tree, unburdened of its load of apples, swayed as lightly “as a lady’s fan”. The poet
subtly suggests that Nature is always liberal and transcends man’s selfish
plans. He also refers to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve who were expelled
from Eden for tasting the forbidden apple of knowledge with a greedy ambition
to become equal to almighty God. The
poet concludes that Nature’s designs always surpass the narrow and selfish intentions
of man. Though this poem though
resembles a sonnet, it has quite different rhyme scheme (abacbcdadeedff) with
different line lengths.
“After apple-picking” is one of the widely-read and popular poems of Robert Frost. It is neither a narrative poem in blank verse nor a dramatic dialogue. It is a nature-lyric depicting the experience of an apple-picker who is tired after the day’s hard work and falls asleep absorbed in the lap of dreams about his day’s hard work. There is a fine blend of illusion and reality in this poem. The poet describes objects realistically and sensuously. All descriptions are vivid and concrete based on poet’s own observation. Physical states like fatigue, drowsiness and mental states like the strangeness of the apples seen through a sheet of ice are nicely depicted. Reality and dream states are vividly described.
This is a poem of reality which has the enchantment of a lingering dream. Themes like life, death and the fall of man are subtly described with deep layers of meaning. The theme of apples symbolically suggests man’s desire for knowledge in the garden of Eden that led to his downfall. The word “Ladder” refers to man’s efforts to reach his goal. It also refers to the ladder that Jacob saw in his vision in which God promises Jacob that he and his descendants will be given the land of Jerusalem. Thus, this poem is filled with deep layers of meaning portraying the feelings of a person gradually sinking into dream-world after being exhausted with day’s hard work. John T. Napier calls this as Frost’s ability “to find the ordinary a matrix for the extraordinary.” In this respect, he is often compared Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, in whose poetry, too, a simple fact, object, person, or event will be transfigured and take on greater mystery or significance.
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9th September, 2021 Somaseshu Gutala
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