Robert Frost on Choices
For this essay, I've chosen to talk about the poem "After Apple Picking" by Robert Frost, a poem about the long-term choices we make that eventually ruin us. We make the choice to act upon some means to some end in the late future, which leads to a self-commitment, which leads to oppressive self-limitation, which finally leads to the loss of the end in sight and the psychological destruction of the person who made the original choice.The poem is about a man who has made the ambitious choice of growing an apple orchard and harvesting it. He makes this choice and acts on it, thereby forming a commitment to himself. He goes through with this commitment right up until the point where it controls him. At this point, he can no longer think for himself, and can no longer think or feel anything other than the process of picking apples. Thus, he has wasted his life and destroyed himself mentally, physically and emotionally. Had the persona decided not to act upon the thought of growing and harvesting an apple orchard, he would have regretted it, and with this regret, would have been driven into making some other decision with the thought "This time... I'll finish it. This time... I'll do it," and, in the end, would end up in the sa
One can see what will troubleThis sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Robert Frost's ten thousand thousand is pretty much equal to the ancient Hebrew seven times seventy-seven or the ancient Chinese ten thousand - just an indeterminable and inexorably large number. The apple harvest is simply a symbol of this. Continuing the school analogy, the apples would be the teachers, the friends, the classes, the school events (swimming carnival, for example) - the things that must be taken seriously, whether they are truly worth anything at all or not. Magnified apples appear and disappear,Stem end and blossom end,And every fleck of russet showing clear. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. Unlike humans, who are shown dreams of freedom for their entire lives, the woodchuck has accepted and, in fact, is content with his repetitive, nut-collecting lifestyle. The heap grows and grows, as more and more mistakes are made. The only thing is, will his entire sleep be troubled, or will he eventually, after waking up a few times, settle down into restfulness, so that he can awaken fresh and happy the next day?For most people who make this kind of choice, they do not realise the impact it's had on them until just before they die, after which they do fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, one from which they will either never wake up, or which they will wake up from as a newborn child, reincarnated into a state of being where they will repeat their life, and repeat the process again. The realisation that comes to the person who reads the poem, that it does, in fact, rhyme, is very similar to the person who, upon considering his worthless commitment, realises that it's repetitive and exactly the same as any other. This is the final acknowledgement that the persona cannot proceed with the task any longer. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. But I am done with apple-picking now. The last line, 'as of no worth' hints at the triviality of things. Everything is ephemeral, everything melts and falls apart, everything will one day be gone, and as such, all ambitious tasks we choose ultimately mean nothing, and it is this realisation that ultimately leads to the final blow to the soul of anyone who tries to make this choice.
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Acceptance Essays
