After Apple Picking
Upon perusal, Robert Frost's poem appears to be a simple story about an apple picker; but with a closer look one can see it is really a more complex piece which represents harvests (both literal and metaphorical), the complex nature of human experience, and the relationship between sleep and death. "After apple picking" has no specific rhyme scheme, although the poem seems to start a developing pattern in the beginning. The first few lines are schemed A B B A C C D and then move on to E D F G F. However, after that, the rhymes are seemingly random. There are a few rhyming couplets (BB CC QQ and RR), but there is almost a mystery surrounding the rhyming "pattern." The reader is forced to guess when rhymes will appear, which keeps the text and sounds active throughout several lines (Spark Notes NP). The poem, however, is basically iambic, drifting from short lines (one foot) to generally long lines (six feet). The poem ranges metrically from pentameter to di-, tri-, and tetrameter which adds spice to an otherwise predictable blank verse. The story is told in the first person-from the perspective of the apple picker himself. This, along with the meter variations
edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2Frost_apple. Once one has decided what the harvest represents, then there is the question of its outcome. One interpretation of this mentions that "[the poem] ponders a harvest which has come to perfection and then gone beyond perfection" (Squires 57). And through this manipulation of language, Frost has created a means to give the reader an experience in which they can most likely directly relate (29-30). The speaker slowly drifts off into sleep to dream about apples but first ponders his sleep. , keeps the poem continually interesting. The word sleep is repeated six times throughout the entire piece. " (This most people can relate to the feeling of taking a ring off and having the indent remain). Frost also relates to human experience with the speaker's recollection of the ladder, "My instep arch not only keeps the ache,/ It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
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Acceptance Essays
