After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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There are so many variables it is hard to pinpoint exactly what motivated Frost to recall this harvest of apples. Is it day time or is it night? It could be night since Frost says, "I'm drowsing off". The poem tries to give you the impression of early morning hours but that is deceiving. Since Frost speaks in the past tense when talking about the "pane of glass", he "skimmed this morning from the drinking trough". Frost speaks of a long, hard day picking apples. As he lies down to sleep, he can still smell the apples he has picked all day "The scent of apples: I am drowsing off". Even after a nights sleep he still feels tired and hazy. He calls the ice that frozen over the water "a pane of glass." Frost wonders if he is still dreaming or not. He has been looking forward to the harvest yet at the same time it is such a large task it made him tired of picking apples "of apple-picking: I am overtired".

One could take this poem literally or look for a deeper meaning within the words. Perhaps, what Frost is telling us that if we have a desire we long for with our hearts that the reality of it may not be exactly what we thought it should be. Just as the apple harvest was desired at first, but when the reality of how much work it really took to accomplish he quickly becomes tired of the job. Frost points out that although there were "ten thousand thousand fruit to touch" each fruit was precious until it struck the ground. After that, it was good for nothing more than to go to the cider heap.

Frost is the one doing all the talking in this poem. The...