“After Apple-Picking” is a poem written by Robert Frost in 1922. The poem is about the day after it has been apple picking season, and reflects on the nature of life outside of farming. “After Apple-picking” begins with the speaker coming down from his orchard to a farm covered with frost. Although at first he feels sad about the end of apple-picking season, he quickly begins to reflect on all of the good things that came from apple-picking. The speaker makes a list of all these positive aspects in stanza three.
He mentions how the children are happy because it is less strenuous for them to pick apples off the ground rather than from trees, and they were able to explore nature while hunting for fallen apples around the yard. After this, he reflects on how everyone else benefited from his orchard work—the pigs eat fallen apples, and even poor people come by asking if anyone has leftovers they can take away. After listing all these benefits, the speaker suggests that perhaps it would be better if nothing ever changed (stanza four). After this, the speaker reflects on how he is sad to see the apple-picking season end as it means many things for him.
For one thing, there’s no more strenuous work that he must do now that apples are all on the ground instead of up in trees. Also, now that apple-picking season is over the speaker can no longer use his orchard as a place to escape from all of life’s problems. After reflecting on these two things, however, the speaker decides maybe it’s better if nothing ever changed after all (stanza five). After going back and forth between wanting everything to stay static and everything to change throughout the poem, Frost ends with a twist.
In stanza six he says “But I’m not sorry for the apple-picking. I’m sorry for the apples”. After reflecting on everything, the speaker of the poem realizes that while there are many great aspects to apple-picking season, he will also miss it when its gone. After Apple-Picking is a poem about how life has good and bad parts to it, but no matter what, it’s always worth living because of all of these things combined. ” After Apple-picking ” is written in iambic tetrameter with an AABB rhyme scheme. Each stanza contains two quatrains with four lines each.
After every quatrain, Frost ends his line with a preposition. For example, after each stanza begins with “And”, the last word in each of these lines is “and”. After Apple-picking goes through six stanzas with this rhyme scheme before ending on a different note. After the poem’s sixth quatrain, it is ended with an iambic dimeter line that reflects on how although there are good parts to apple picking season, it will be missed when its gone. After Apple-Picking contains many examples of internal rhyme in order to create a melancholy tone throughout the entire poem.
The tone created by Robert Frost is one of reflection and contemplation after the Apple-picking season has passed. The speaker is very nostalgic about the end of the apple-picking season because he takes time to reflect on all of the good that came from it. After Apple-picking starts off with the speaker coming down from his orchard, sad to see the season end. After thinking about all of the benefits apple-picking brought, he realizes how life is full of good and bad parts so maybe it’s better if nothing ever changes.
After going back and forth between wanting everything to stay static and everything to change throughout the poem, Frost ends with a twist. After reflecting on everything, the speaker of After Apple-Picking realizes that while there are many great aspects to apple-picking season, he will also miss it when it’s gone. After Apple-Picking is meant to invoke contemplation in readers because Robert Frost does this through having an indecisive tone throughout his poem. After Apple-picking is reflective in that it allows readers to look back on their own memories of past seasons, good and bad.
After the apples are gone, life has waned for the apple trees. After they have died though, their fruit remains. Robert Frost is known as the “Mountain Poet”, which can carry many implications. He was born in California and later moved to England even before his high school days were over (Krimsky). After that he lived in New Hampshire but moved throughout many places to teach English literature at universities such as; Dartmouth College; Harvard University; and Amherst College (Krimsky).
After accepting a position at Amherst College Robert Frost became very successful and famously known. Although he passed away on January 29th of 1963, no one could ever take away his fame success (Frost 1). The first stanza begins with the description of “the apples”, which are essentially symbols for life. After, Frost discusses how it is often referred to as the morning after. After this he jumps back into symbolism by saying that once there was a “dripping burden” on his trees but now his trees are no longer burdened because the apples have fallen.
His next line describes apples as being used to rouse people out of sleep hence why it is called morning, but in this poem it represents an ending (Now It Can Be Told 368). After Apple-picking is when one would gather their harvest and take the time to rest and reflect on all that has happened during that year; almost like a reward for their hard work. After this Frost discusses the actual picking of the apples themselves; until now it had only been referred to as “after apple-picking” but he now speaks about it with more detail (Now It Can Be Told 368).
After, apples are picked people go home and prepare for what they have gotten. After that statement he says that there is no house or town with walls around it to prevent them from leaving so they do leave after doing all of these things (Now It Can Be Told 369). The second stanza is where Robert Frost directly talks about symbolism in his poem again. He starts off by saying how some people seem to confuse dreams with reality because their reality seems like a dream, which makes sense with the symbolism earlier in the poem.
After, he is comparing apples to wine by saying how apples are used as a source of alcohol and wine is made from grapes that have been fermented (Now It Can Be Told 369). Therefore, this situation involving “after apple-picking” refers to life itself in a very spiritual way because it has a lot in common with the biblical story in which God believes Adam and Eve committed sin when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
