"AFTER APPLE-PICKING" INTERPERATIVE ESSAY.
I have heard that the second before a human being dies, his life will flash right in front of his eyes. But, what if somebody has been completely happy his entire life and the night before he dies, he begins to realize that maybe he did not do everything he wanted to accomplish in his life? "After Apple-Picking" is about a dying man who is thinking about the accomplishments in his lifetime, and he also thinks about the opportunities he has had and let pass by. This poem has quite a bit of rhyming and there are variations in the line length. For example, line one is rather long, and line two is fairly short. In addition, the rhyming is staggered, but it keeps the sound of the poem alive. The approaching of winter in the poem is a strong symbol of death; showing his life is coming to an end. He is positive about his thoughts in his afterlife. He begins to think about how successful he has been, and he begins to get truly concerned with the choices he has made. As Frost speaks about going into the stages of his final sleep, he knows his mind will wonder about the regrets in his life.
As Frost begins this poem, he says that his "long, two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree" towards heaven and looking down upon the apples he never picked. He is not regretting the fact that he never picked them because he is "done with apple picking now." Although he seems to be very confident in his statement, I question the seriousness as he looks down at the barrel he never filled. The apple picking itself, in the poem, is taking into consideration how he has experienced his life with a few regrets and mistakes. This is the last day for him to live while, "the essence of winter sleep is on the night." The approach of winter in this sense feels like the presence of being a subject for death.
Frost goes on in the poem and talks about his strange view of the "hoary grass" through a small sheet of ice.
