Robert Frost’s After Apple-Picking

Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking”

Set in the evening of a late autumn day at the end of harvest time, Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” can be interpreted in two ways. The first is that the poem is an insight into Frost’s thoughts on the triviality of life, especially his own. The second is that it is a metaphor for the Bible story of Adam and Eve. Whatever the interpretation, there is a tension between feelings of regret and satisfaction that is created and sustained throughout the entire poem by the use of many contributing factors.

“After Apple-Picking” paints the picture of a chilly evening near the beginning of winter. The speaker has just finished picking apples for that year’s harvest, his ladder still leaning against the tree. There are very few apples left on the tree and one of his baskets isn’t quite full. His feet hurt from standing on the ladder for too long and the smell of apples is everywhere. He is tired and starts to drift off into sleep.

Frost takes this ordinary experience and turns it into a contemplation on life. The first sign of any kind of tension is in the first six lines. The ladder, which points “toward heaven,” represents the speaker’s climb through life toward death and heaven and the barrel and apples left on the tree represent things he regrets having or not having done during his lifetime. But in line six he says that he is “done with apple-picking now,” which sounds as if he’s saying that what’s done is done and he mus...