Literary analysis of the poem “After Apple picking” by Robert Frost
Eliani Hoyt
Professor: Patricia Pallis
ENG 102: Literature and Composition
Introduction
Robert Lee Frost can be considered as one of the best poets in the world of poetry. He was an American by birth and highly recognized as one of the realistic poet. He had lot of skills in rural life and colloquial English in American literature. He has written several poems on nature and the rural life mist of them have become realistic masterpieces. He was honored several occasions for his works. He was one of the greatest people, who have depicted the life of the rural people. The poem” AFTER APPLE-PICKING” was one of his masterpieces and it is related to the farm
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The worker has lot of help from the outside it has depicted in the next image “Rumbling sound of load on load of apples “
The image “white “is used by the poet in his poem in order to indicate the peace and the calmness of the life. It can be considered as the expected serenity that the worker expects after his daily chorus or in other words after life.
The poet has used his language to convey the meaning in the proper manner. He does not use onomatopoeia in this poem instead of that he has used simple rhyming scheme to his poem while refraining from using harsh and ardors words in his work. He has increased the intensity of the worker by applying certain words such as “trees”, “apples” “harvest”, “and ladder” to create a comprehensive idea in the reader.
Conclusion
As the whole the poet was able to create a vivid picture of the life, aimlessness and the death by employing his poem. The unique features of this nature and realistic poet can be visible through of the work. Frost has used the literary techniques to certain extent. The rhyme and the imageries of the poem have helped a lot to develop the poem, while demonstrating the characteristics of the
Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26 of 1974 and died in Boston, Massachusetts on January 29 of 1963. Though he did not truly start publishing poems until age thirty-nine, Frost obtained four Pulitzer prizes in his writing career and was deemed one of the greatest twentieth century poets. His pastoral writing and skilled use of meter and rhythm has captured the attention of reader’s and critics for decades (Academic American, 345). Frost was very fond of nature and the beauty of things around him and illustrated this in many of his poems. A reviewer stated that Frost was “always occupied with the complicated task of simply being sincere” (Faggen, I). This statement describes the writer well in the sense that Frost’s works are very full of emotion. His use of the English language and the fact that he often seemed to be holding a little something back in his writing has made him one of the most celebrated American writers ever.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
Frost is far more than the simple agrarian writer some claim him to be. He is deceptively simple at first glance, writing poetry that is easy to understand on an immediate, superficial level. Closer examination of his texts, however, reveal his thoughts on deeply troubling psychological states of living in a modern world. As bombs exploded and bodies piled up in the World Wars, people were forced to consider not only death, but the aspects of human nature that could allow such atrocities to occur. By using natural themes and images to present modernist concerns, Frost creates poetry that both soothes his readers and asks them to consider the true nature of the world and themselves.
Frost's poem addresses the tragic transitory nature of living things; from the moment of conception, we are ever-striding towards death. Frost offers no remedy for the universal illness of aging; no solution to the fact that the glory of youth lasts only a moment. He merely commits to writing a deliberation of what he understands to be a reality, however tragic. The affliction of dissatisfaction that Frost suffers from cannot be treated in any tangible way. Frost's response is to refuse to silently buckle to the seemingly sadistic ways of the world. He attacks the culprit of aging the only way one can attack the enigmatic forces of the universe, by naming it as the tragedy that it is.
Instructor Mendoza English 1B 22 July 2015. Robert Frost: Annotated Bibliography. Research Question: What are the common themes in Robert Frost's work? Robert Frost is a very successful poet from the 20th century, as well as a four time Pulitzer Prize winner.
The first technique he uses is imagery. Frost does this at the beginning of the poem by talking about all of the beauty of nature that is around the boy. For example, he talks about the mountains in the distance that the boy does not see because he is too busy working. Another example and the most important use of imagery in this poem is the snarling and rattling of the saw. This is essential because it gives the readers a since of life to the saw. Lastly, the sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it gives the reader not only smell but also touch. All of these examples of imagery helps set the mood for the reader and puts them into the poem as an onlooker. Another technique that he uses is figurative language. The saw “snarled and rattled” is the use of figurative language and onomatopoeia because it represents the fate of the boy and the animal-like noise that accompanies the fate. Also, “Call it a day” is figurative language because this represents that if the boy was told to stop working earlier he might have never lost his and hand and would not have died. Frost also uses figurative language when he wrote “The life from spilling” meaning that literally the blood is gushing from his arm and so his life is quickly fading away because the more blood loss the faster arrival of death will come. Irony can also be found in “Out, out” when the boy laughs after his hand is cut off by the saw. This ironic because usually people do not laugh at these types of situations and have the complete opposite reaction which is usually panic. Frost also uses blank verse and no stanzas to convey emotion throughout the poem. He does this by showing the light heartedness of the setting at the beginning of the poem and is invested in the boy, but then as the poem continues he detaches himself from the emotional aspect of the situation the boy is in. For example, when is says, “Call it a day , I
...ed by many scholars as his best work. It is through his awareness of the merit, the definitive disconnectedness, of nature and man that is most viewable in this poem. Throughout this essay, Frosts messages of innocence, evil, and design by deific intrusion reverberate true to his own personal standpoint of man and nature. It is in this, that Frost expresses the ideology of a benign deity.
Frost’s sentence structure is long and complicated. Many meanings of his poems are not revealed to the reader through first glance, but only after close introspection of the poem. The true meanings contained in Frost’s poems, are usually lessons on life. Frost uses symbolism of nature and incorporates that symbolism into everyday life situations. The speaker in the poems vary, in the poem “The Pasture”, Frost seems to be directly involved in the poem, where as in the poem “While in the Rose Pogonias”, he is a detached observer, viewing and talking about the world’s beauty. Subsequently, the author transfers that beauty over to the beauty of experiences that are achieved through everyday life.
strengthens his viewpoint and regards Frost as ―one of the most intuitive poets [. . . h]e sees
This paper is about “After Apple Picking,” by Robert Frost, from the perspectives of Carl Phillips and Priscilla Paton. I would like to focus more on Carl Phillips discussion of “After Apple Picking” as his article has more focus on an actual argument on what “After Apple Picking” is about compared to Paton’s article which is more about how Frost went about writing his poems though his usage of metaphors and vague colloquialisms . Neither article was solely about “After Apple Picking,” but both had a few good observations and comments about the poem. Phillips main observation, and argument, was that “After Apple Picking” was about restlessness and ambition. “It’s a poem of restlessness, the restlessness of an ambition that spurs us towards greater achievement.” (Phillips 134).
The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death. It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death.
Robert Frost wrote his poems during the early- to mid-20th century, and that was during the time period of a huge change in the rural community. This was a very influential point for the people in America, because of the drastic changes of a rural community. People were used to living on secluded farms, that had no grocery store and everything relied on their work on the farm. Children would grow up around nature and using the world around them as their playground. With the new rural community people were getting away from the isolation and moving into mass groups into cities, which rid of nature as a playground for little kids. It seemed as if nature was being thrown out of the picture as the world grew, but Robert Frost made a point of including the beauty and importance of nature in his poems. There is something poetic about nature, and Robert Frost always mentioned these in his poems. In Frost’s poems, Birches, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Out, Out-, he includes the importance for children to play on trees, to admire all nature around, and to stop to admire nature sometimes.
Frost’s use of comparisons helps the reader to better interpret the meaning of this poem. The picture created, with his use of imagery allows the reader to view his work from various perspectives. His analogies are very pragmatic. The reader is able to relate to the speaker’s feelings. After reading this poem it gives the reader a sense of understanding why the speaker wished he could go back to his past so much.
Frost was a rural Yankee whose writings reflect everyday experiences-his own experiences, but was one who saw metaphorical dimensions in the everyday things he encountered. These everyday encounters held ground as his subject manner, combined with the rural setting of New England nature, seasons, weather and times of day. Frost’s goal was to write his poetry in such a way that it would cover familiar ground, but in an unfamiliar way or uncommon in expression.
Robert Frost is an amazing poet that many admire today. He is an inspiration to many poets today. His themes and ideas are wonderful and are valued by many. His themes are plentiful however a main one used is the theme of nature. Frost uses nature to express his views as well as to make his poetry interesting and easy to imagine in your mind through the detail he supplies.