Robert Frost: life and literary legacy

Robert Frost

The title of Robert Frost's poem "After Apple Picking" reveals much about its theme and tone. On the surface the poem tells a simple story of a man who has grown mentally and physically exhausted from his job of picking apples. He narrates his story while tiredly working, suspended in a ladder from an orchard tree. However, the surface meaning of this Frost poem becomes virtually irrelevant in light of the rich layers of symbolic content it contains. Sexual imagery and imagery of life and death commingle in "After Apple Picking." Moreover, the apple serves its primary purpose as the ultimate symbol of desire. While poem's narrator daydreams about what he wants to do after apple picking season ends, he also delves deeper into the meaning of desire and its relevance for the human condition. "After Apple Picking" is Robert Frost's response to the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, as the poem suggests that desire and free will seem more treacherous than they actually are.

Sexual imagery is subtle in "After Apple Picking." The first line, however, abounds with phallic motifs. The narrator opens by describing "My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree." Words like "long" and phrases like "sticking through" connote sexual intimacy. An extended sexual metaphor continues in the third line of the poem, which refers to the "barrel that I didn't fill." A barrel is a receptacle, a symbol of female sexuality that contrasts immediately with the imagery of the long ladder. The barrel he didn't fill, moreover, refers to those experiences that he had longed for but could not fulfill. Thus, the first three lines of the poem establish one of its central themes: unfulfilled desire. Using sexual imagery allows Frost to draw out the theme of unfulfilled universal desire. No other metaphor can so thoroughly evoke the essence of human desire as the sexual response. Therefore, "After Apple Picking" is only superficially about unfulfilled lust. On deeper levels the poem describes the nature of unfulfilled desire in general.

Biblical imagery also coincides with sexual imagery in "After Apple Picking." In fact, the sexual imagery and the biblical imagery contained in Frost's poem commingle and provide the poem with its many layers and rich meanings. The narrator picks apples: just as Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Moreover, the first line of the poem evokes serpentine imagery in the form of the "two-pointed ladder." A two-pointed ladder refers at once to the forked tongue of the snake and to the polarity of God and the Devil. Traditionally, the Devil represents desire: the central theme of "After Apple Picking." The narrator in the poem also frequently feels like he is falling. He first mentions the word "fall" in line 13 of the poem but even before then the narrator suggests that he is falling asleep. For example, he states outright, "I am drowsing off," (line 8). Falling asleep is also a metaphor for losing consciousness, for losing sight of God.

When the narrator mentions he was "looking through a pane of glass," he gently alludes to the Apostle Paul's mystical aphorism: "I see, as through a glass, darkly." (line 10). That Frost intended to make the connection between his poem and Paul's words becomes apparent in light of the line immediately prior, which refers to sight directly: "I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight," (line 9). Taken together, lines 9 and 10 reiterate Paul's suggestion that wisdom comes with time and experience; that the human condition blinds us often to greater spiritual truths. Human desire is also a potentially blinding force that steers the will away from God and toward the object of desire as it did to Eve in the Garden. Desire causes human beings to see through a glass, darkly.

Similarly, the Biblical story of the fall focuses on the idea of free will and self-determination. Frost's poem mirrors the Biblical Fall story. The narrator explicitly states that he "let it fall and break," just as Eve let herself break down and eat from the tree of forbidden fruit (line 13). The narrator also notes, "But I was well / Upon my way to sleep before it fell," (line 15). He had already begun to lose consciousness, to succumb to desire and dreaming. Thus the narrator takes full responsibility for his fall, offering a humanistic twist to the traditional Garden of Eden story. Rather than blaming the serpent for the evils of the world the narrator places human beings in a more spiritually powerful position. The narrator remains in full control of his consciousness even as he slips away. He claims that he "could tell / What form my dreaming was about to take," in lines 16 and 17. The two-pointed ladder, his symbolic Satan, swayed but did not itself fall from the tree (line 23).

The poem's first stanza seems to abruptly end, like a dream would. After telling the reader that he could "feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend," the narrator brings himself back to consciousness. He narrowly averted a literal fall from the apple tree and a symbolic fall from grace. His fall also denotes dying because of the precarious position the narrator maintains throughout the duration of the poem. Imagery of death is subtle in "After Apple Picking," and Frost seems to suggest that death is a natural part of life. For instance, the narrator dreams of apples that "appear and disappear," with the ebb and flow of life (line 18). Similarly, the narrator mentions the woodchuck's "long sleep" at the end of the poem not as a euphemism for death as the term "long sleep" is usually used but rather, as a direct reference to winter hibernation (line 41). The reference to hibernation in the last few lines of the poem parallels an earlier mention of the "essence of winter sleep" in line 7. The essence of winter sleep is, moreover "on the night," signaling the dream state. When the narrator notes that the essence of winter sleep mimic the "scent of apples," he ties in the imagery denoting desire (line 8).

The narrator remains concerned with what life comes after apple picking. Just as the Biblical story of the Fall signals the beginning of human life as we know it, so too does the narrator's fall signal the beginning of a new life for him. He repeatedly mentions that he has grown tired of apple picking. For example, he states, "I have had too much / Of apple-picking: I am overtired," (line 29). The narrator does not feel a sense of remorse, however. He proudly refers to the "great harvest I myself desired," again taking responsibility for his choices (line 29).