Analysis Of Robert Frost's After Apple Picking

Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Self Destruction and Impossible Standards As Seen Through Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” Weaving in and out of a dream-like state, the persona of Robert Frost’s, “After Apple-Picking,” explores the tendency of man to set impossible personal standards and the desire to give in to the, “long sleep,” (After, 536) when these standards aren’t met. Through deeply intricate structure Frost paints a portrait of a man on the brink of self proclaimed failure and the exhaustion he faces after spending so long fighting his inevitable defeat. The poem begins in an action. The persona is observing his ladder still, “sticking through a tree,” (After, 535) while making the decision to not pick the remaining apples from the orchard. He then tells of a tiredness that has grasped him since seeing the first ice of winter on his drinking trough. The persona worries for the state of his dreams when he, inevitably, falls asleep. On the brink of sleep he

The first four lines of the poem are an inclosed rhyme, evocative of the start of a Petrarchan sonnet. As Petrarchan sonnets traditionally discuss themes of love, be it unobtainable or perfect, this rhyme scheme draws a comparison between the persona’s loss of inspiration and a lost love, thereby enhancing the depth of his struggle. The fact that it is not a separate quatrain, as it would be in a Petrarchan sonnet, represents the unavoidable flow of the persona from conscience thought to a confused dream-like state. Following the opening lines is a rhyming couplet that reads, “Apples I didn 't pick upon some bough/But I am done with apple-picking now.” (535) This couplet draws together the concept of his having quit due to not picking all of the apples in the orchard and thereby not achieving his goal of a “great harvest.”