After Apple-Picking

1) The imagery the Frost uses in this poem really helps you convey the poem through his eyes. When he uses organic imagery it lets you know what he is feeling inside, you are able to recognize this often when poets use the word “I,” such as “I have had to much…” or,” I am overtired.” This tells you that he is mentally and emotionally tired of the life that he is living and that he is also physically tired of apple-picking. In this case his physical exhaustion could also be thought of as Kinesthetic Imagery, which focuses, obviously, on how that narrator feels externally. After climbing up and down the ladder for a long time his fee sort of mold to the shape of the ladder and constantly ache from it. The imagery I have explained evokes a lot of sadness and depression for the narrator.

2) Even though he used to be very happy and content with his job at one time, after years and years of repetition he is getting sick of it. lately he has started to get a careless, leaving a few apples on the ground. He realizes that he isn’t going to do as good of a job as he used to so he really isn’t all that dissatisfied.

3) Most likely, much like his life, this is a repetitious dream that he has every night, therefore he tells it to us what the dream will be about because knows what to expect.

4) Sleep is supposed to be a time where you can, in a sense, get away from your life. However since he is either apple-picking or dreaming about apple-picking he really has no escape, so yes he is probably afraid of sleep. Usually if you have a repetitious life sleep will always be a change for you, because of random dreams or nightmares you may have. Unfortunately his life purely revolves around apple-picking which means he probably dreads being awake and sleeping, which means he dreads his life.

5) A) the ladder is most likely symbolizing his life. He was gradually climbing up the ladder and now that he is at the top it is almost the end of his life. B) It’s harvest time which means winter is creeping closer and closer, which symbolically means death is creeping closer. During winter everything dies: grass, trees, the farmers crops and so on. Therefore usually winter symbolically means death or loss. C) Most likely when he harvests, or picks, his apple he is picking off days or parts of his life. Since he keeps growing the trees though he keeps living because there are still apples for him to pick. D) He could be watching through the pane glass and seeing what his life could have been and it could be causing him pain. Essence of winter sleep most likely means death. Winter meaning death and sleep meaning escaping from your life, this probably means he can tell he is going to die soon.

6) Woodchucks hibernate in the winter and as we know humans sleep and wake up everyday. Hibernating is sleeping for a very long time so to the apple-picker would be like dieing,

After reading this I was under the impression that it is about a man who is ultimately coming to terms with dieing and realixing that he hasn’t really lived. His way of life was good at first but then he realized falling into the same old pattern every day makes your life go by quickly and not very memorable. He sees death coming in winter and all he has to do is finish this years harvest, or taking of days off his tree of life, then he can finally escape his monotone life and be free with death.