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After Apple Picking

Satisfactory Essays

Each poem hides a deeper meaning behind its outer shell. It is important to understand and analyze every part of a poem in order to discern all its hidden features. Robert Frost is a famous poet, he wrote “After Apple-Picking” which at first seems to be a poem just about apple picking . However, if this poem is picked apart the reader can discover the deeper message behind it. Robert Frost’s, “After Apple-Picking”, is a poem about a dying old man who is looking back on his life, represented by apple picking, and of his regret for unaccomplished desires. Throughout the poem, the reader gets a sense that the speaker of the poem is in a dream like state, reminiscing about his life. The speaker is in bed sleeping, dreaming about his life and connecting it to apple picking, not knowing if he is just normally sleeping or is he about to pass away. Throughout the poem, Frost uses many different literary devices and specific word choice to convey the deeper meaning behind this poem about apple picking. The theme of the poem is the reminiscence of life's desires and the acceptance of death. The speaker of the poem is an old man who lives on a farm and has an apple orchard. The old man is tired, and is reminiscing about his life before he presumably dies. In the poem, apple picking and life go hand in hand, and the old man is just tired of it all and all the missed opportunities. The poem begins with a happy tone, the old man is happy and welcomes his fate of death. He shows this by saying things like he is ready for heaven; he is finally done with picking apples. In line three, “And there’s a barrel I didn’t fill” suggests that he does not care anymore he is content with his life and ready to accept what comes his way. With references to his ladder pointed to heaven and being content about being done picking apples shows the poems happy tone in the beginning. The tone then start to shift to something more dark and somber. This tone sets up the theme of desires and the significance in life, but does not complete it. The later part of the poem is sad. He is finally accepting his fate, when he realizes that he was wrong and there were things he wished to complete. Line nine says, "I cannot rub the strangeness from my

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