Frost Commentary: “After Apple-Picking”
Evidence
7. In what sense does the poem reach a conclusion?
“My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking
through a tree/ Toward heaven still” (1-2)
“And held agains the world of hoary grass./ It
melted, and I let it fall and break” (12-13)
“One can see what will trouble/ This sleep of
mine” (37-38)
11. What effect does the title have on your understanding of the poem?
“After Apple-Picking” (title)
Alicia Wei
Commentary
The poem begins with a sense of hope. The
readers are not yet aware that the speaker is
tired from the apple picking and wants to give
up yet. The speaker seems to still have hope
through the description of the ladder still
pointing towards the skies.
From the beginning of the poem until now, the
speaker seems to take a major turn. Now he
views the world heavily, as if there were no
hope anymore. His current predicament seems
to be brought on by himself. It seems as if the
speaker’s life is coming to an end, both
literally and figuratively. Around this time, the
apples, which seem to represent the speaker’s
dreams, have fallen to the ground unpicked.
This emphasizes the speaker’s unchecked
goals for himself that causes his own
downfall.
By the conclusion of the poem, the reader has
developed a strong sense of foreboding for the
speaker. At the first mention of “sleep,” one
has to wonder whether or not the speaker is
referring to death. On top of the troubles that
the speaker has been going through, the reader
has to assume that he is tired of everything,
and just wants to rest. This leaves the ending
of the poem extremely ambiguously.
The title is significant in laying the grounds
for the understanding of the poem. The title
suggests that it is now after the harvest,
meaning that (if he were successful) everyone
will be tired and exhausted. Figuratively, this
suggests the aftermath of a great event within
the speaker’s life.
 Frost Commentary: “After Apple-Picking” Alicia Wei

The first glimpse we get of the speaker’s

fatigue is through the first couple of lines. The
repetition of apples there suggests that the
apples have a far greater meaning to the
“And there may be two or three/ Apples I speaker. The first scene of imagery is
didn’t pick upon some bough” (4-5) immediately tied to the title. The title suggests
that it is after the harvest, and following that,
the first scene s what we expect to see after a
harvest. In a sense, the title prepares us for a
very dreary scene.
Towards the conclusion of the poem, the
speaker seems to be tired of his dreams (the
apples), and wants to quit. The title then plays
“Of apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great a role in our expectancy of this occurring
harvest I myself desired” (28-29) because it is one of the possible scenarios
upon reading the title. One tends to get tired of
something they love when they have exerted
all their energy for it.
How do language, imagery, and structure contribute to the poem’s mood?
The diction and imagery used here seems to
describe the speaker’s weariness of life. The
speaker cannot just ignore the weariness of life
and this causes him to thin about the things he
“I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight/ I
missed and the chances he did not take in life
got from looking through a pane of
because of his uncontrolled ambition. This
glass” (9-10)
then ties back into the futility of his life and
the constant cycle of hopes and dreams with
the downfall of reality. By this point in the
poem, the mood is extremely glum.
 Frost Commentary: “After Apple-Picking”
“And I keep hearing from the cellar bin/ That
rumbling sound” (24-25)
“There were ten thousand thousand fruit to
touch” (30)
“My instep arch not only keeps the ache,/ It
keeps that pressure of the ladder-
round” (21-22)
What symbols in the poem contribute to overall meaning?
Alicia Wei
The speaker hears, feels, sees, and smells
because these are all the things he experiences
that furthers his idea of the futility of life. We
only work our hardest, to die later without
anything to bring. This use of language adds to
the overall poem’s mood of curiosity. Upon
hearing the rumbling sound, the reader has to
wonder what it is from. Also, this furthers the
extremely glum mood of the poem because the
far off rumbling represents that the speaker is
reminiscing about the opportunities that have
passed him by and that he will never be able to
change it except to dwell on the fact that he
never took advantage of it.
A hyperbole is used here to show that there is
an overwhelming amount of apples. The
constant repetition of apples suggests that it is
a symbols of hopes, dreams, and opportunities
that one has in life. This furthers the tone of
the poem because it helps the reader visualize
the disparity of the speaker in not realizing his
life’s apples (hopes, dreams, and
opportunities) because he ended up not getting
as many apples as he wanted and the ones he
let fall were the opportunities he missed.
Imagery is used here to show that the speaker
is now tired of his dreams, or his apples, but
continues to feel a connection to it, keeping
the hope for his apples pointed upwards where
there is still hope. The ache that the speaker
feels from exhaustion adds to the overall
hopeless mood of the poem.
 Frost Commentary: “After Apple-Picking” Alicia Wei

The speaker’s apples that hit the earth

represents his sin and earthly corruption. The
are treated with no worth, similar to how
Adam and Eve were treated after they fell to
earth upon tasting the forbidden fruit from the
“For all/ that struck earth” (31-32)
Garden of Eden. The apples symbolize the
speaker’s dreams and ambitions in life, which
further explains the hopeless mood of the
poem when the speaker is unable to realize
them.
The speaker’s uncontrollable desire to sleep
symbolizes the weariness that life causes us.
Life ultimately wears the best of us down to
the bone, leading us to earn for sleep and
“Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,/Or
peace. The then contributes to the overall
just some human sleep” (41-42)
meaning of the poem because now the speaker
doesn’t seem like a quitter, rather one who has
been worn down bye the harshness of life,
leading to more sympathy for him.
The harvest symbolizes the greed of the
speaker. The speaker originally wanted much
out of life, out of his apples, but notice how
the speaker now refers to the great harvest in
past tense. This represents that the speaker
now realizes that his great harvest is a futile
“Of the great harvest I myself desired” (29)
attempt. Now that he is worn down by his
great desire for more apples, or for a great
harvest, the speaker no longer desires the
harvest. This then ties into the overall meaning
of the poem through the futility of life that the
harvest seems to instill on the speaker himself.