Philosophical Musings about Life, Failure, and Death and Symbolism in After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost
The poem After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost is a poem thatillustrates implicitly the process of human life in the world-that is lifebegun, lived through hardships and failures, and eventually ended withdeath. These primary themes in the poem, namely life, failure, and death,are narrated and given meaningful interpretations using symbolism.Utilizing symbolism as representations of these themes is embodied by theact of apple-picking, apples, the coming of winter, and sleep. Robert Frost, famous American poet of the 19th and 20th centuryAmerican poetry, was known for his traditional, yet revolutionary,composition and creation of poems. Frost's poetry style is categorized tobe mainly traditional, centering on themes that depict rural life andindividual musings of an individual who has been nurtured and lived closeto nature. Evidently, the poet's style reflects the traditional and rusticfeel of rural life. Nevertheless, despite the seemingly mundane events andsituations that he uses to depict rural life and living, Frost creates anddevelops a 'fresh look' at traditional poetry. Rural life becomes aprivilege for the readers, rural living becomes an ideal where life becomes
his poems were read moreoften for a nostalgic moral uplift than a realistic view of living. This paper provides a detailed analysisand interpretations of Frost's philosophical musings about life, failure,and death-primary themes centered on the by the speaker (a farmer, Frosthimself) in the poem. " Apple-picking as anevent is a symbolic representation of life itself, which may be construedas an activity where life is motivated and lived by the activity of doingboth good and bad deeds towards other people and the Self. Frost tries to illustrate here that a life lived full ofsuccess and failures cannot be called a meaningful life; what poses as anmeaningful life for the poet is the presence of happiness and contentmentin life, whether the 'barrel is full' or not. Death also comes in the form of winter and sleep, as expressed in thefollowing lines: "But I am done with apple-picking now/ Essence of wintersleep is on the night,/ The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. The farmer's feelings of turmoil, frustration, and instabilityare symbolically shown in the movement of the ladder used for apple-picking, which "sway as the boughs bend. " Stanza 2 of the poem returns the speaker, the farmer, back ontoreality. In effect, After Apple-Picking provides an alternative view about lifeand death, where death is preferred by the farmer than living, mainlybecause it is in the coming of death that the farmer/apple-picker had fullyrealized the true meaning of life (for him). Indeed, this reflection ischaracteristic of Frost's poetic style, where ". lived to the fullest; the mundane becomes an extraordinaryevent or situation.
Common topics in this essay:
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Robert Frost,
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,
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depict rural life,
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