Analysis of Robert Frost's "After Apple Picking"

The sole difference between overwhelming optimism and depressing pessimism is perspective. How a person views a situation directly affects their attitude toward the situation. In Robert Frost's poem, “After Apple Picking”, he examines perspective. More specifically, he makes pointed observations about the effect of perspective on religion. Frost uses many allusions to make these observations. These allusions frame his ideas in a way that is understandable at a glance, but primarily targets emotional response. Without these allusions, Frost's poem would have been much weaker.

The first of Frost's allusions comes at the very beginning of the poem. It provides the large scale frame of the poem, stating, “My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree; Toward heaven still,” (Frost 1). Frost's reference to heaven obviously links the rest of the poem to religion, though is reasoning for describing his ladder as “sticking through a tree” is slightly more obscure. This short phrase provides the second half of the frame for his poem. It points out issues of perspective, as the ladder is not literally going through a tree, it simply appears to be so from the ground. Frost's perspective from the ground makes the ladder go through the tree, though from the ladder itself one would not that the ladder was merely leaning against the tree. Frost's first lines serve to frame the poem, but without the allusions he uses, these lines would be far less effective as a whole.

Frost's next observation concerns the effects of real-life events on a person's perspective. After describing a few pieces of an apple picking scene in lines three through five, Frost states, “But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night,” (Frost 6,7). Frost describes the coming of winter as his reasoning for choosing to no longer pick apples. Frost is continuing his extended apple-picking metaphor to cover another of his observations. He uses the coming of winter, essentially a synonym for death and darkness, to describe how negative situations in people's lives can often lead them to question their faith. In the context of the poem, the coming winter dampens Frost's outlook on his apple harvest, ultimately leading him to give up.

Shortly after describing the effects of negative events on people's perspectives, Frost goes on to describe the perspective change itself. He describes how he looks at his apple trees through a piece of ice, saying, “...looking through a pane of glass; I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough; And held against the world of hoary grass.” (Frost 10-12). He is again using winter, in this case ice, as a metaphor for a bleak or depressing event. Frost then describes a change in perspective, saying, “An I could tell; What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end,” (Frost 16-19). By talking about disappearing apples and the end of stem and blossom, Frost is supporting once again his observations about negative events influencing people's views on life. In this case, Frost describes how his own views on apple-picking transition from the belief that apple-picking is essential and desirable, to a belief that apple-picking is futile and hopeless.

At this point in Frost's poem, he begins to focus wholly on the post-transition views. He reinforces this drastic transition when he says, “I am overtired, Of the great harvest I myself desired.” (Frost 28,29). He goes on to describe how any apple that touches the ground is deemed useless, ultimately describing apple-picking as a futile endeavor. Ultimately, Frost begins describing a “Long sleep...coming on” (Frost 41). In the closing lines of the poem, Frost is describing death as inevitable. This serves to cement the transition of perspective from bright with descriptions of heaven, to defeated with observations on futility and inevitable death. All the while, Frost extend his allusions and metaphors concerning heaven and apple-picking.

In Robert Frost's poem, “After Apple Picking”, he uses several allusions and metaphors to show a transition of perspectives. Frost's opening allusions reference heaven, showing a positive outlook. However, Frost uses winter and ice as metaphors for depressing situations. He then directly describes a change in perspective. The last half of the poem shows an extremely different tone than the first half, describing futility and death instead of heaven and apples. The whole poem serves basically as a medium for Frost's observations on perspective, specifically its effects on religion. Without the use of his strong allusions and powerful metaphors, Frost's observations would have gone unnoticed through time. Ultimately, his use of allusions and metaphors greatly strengthens the poem as a whole.