Analysis of Robert Frost”s “After Apple Picking” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

“A poem begins in delight and ends in knowledge,”- Robert Frost. This one simple quote highlights the muse of Frost’s poems. It hits the goal. Each of Frost’s poems indeed start with “delight”, a person picking apples, a person riding his horse or a person strolling down a highway. However, Frost is able to discover the extraordinary in the most standard situations, leaving the viewers pondering and contemplating life’s journeys. Frost explores the ‘extraordinary’ through the themes of thriller and human limitation.

At the top of our lives, we’ll really feel dissatisfaction and regret.

After studying After Apple Picking, we may agree with this assertion. However, Frost’s ambiguous tone solely hints at this morbid outcome, never truly confirming our suspicions. The persona himself is left wondering, “whatever sleep it’s. ” Is it a “long sleep”, “or just some human sleep. ” He wonders if he is just hibernating, just like the woodchuck, however in the end, weariness overcomes suspicion and the viewers is left questioning.

Through use of seasonal imagery, the persona foreshadows his demise, as regards to winter being made all through the poem.

The persona also states that when he saw his reflection within the “drinking trough” the reflection was “hoary” or grey with age. Seasonal imagery can be used to create mystery in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Extreme use of symbolism turns it into a very harmful setting; “the darkest night of the yr. ” “The woods are pretty, dark and deep” and become attractive, a seductive device to lure the persona away from the formal, systematised town.

On the other hand, they may be a beautiful siren, nature serving as break from structured residing.

But his ambiguous tone and isolated setting forms the suspicion that the persona is contemplating suicide. However, the two lines of the poem “and miles to go before I sleep,” shows that the persona still has his life forward of him. Again, the finish result of the poem is indefinite. Frost criticises human limitation in After Apple Picking. The persona uses apples as a logo for life’s incessant duties, signifying the sensation of incompleteness; “there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill”. “There had been ten thousand thousand fruit to touch”, “of load on load of apples coming in”.

The poet uses repetition to stress the countless opportunities which he “let fall”. Frost takes a easy task of apple-picking and makes the audience mirror on life’s selections. The tone of the poem is unsatisfied and remorseful and Frost’s ‘extraordinary’ nature of the poem suggests that the sensation could also be unavoidable and life is “of no worth”. This common idea has made Frost’s poem timeless, similar to the aphorisms explored in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. The horse’s confusion exhibits the abnormality of the persona’s sudden halt to view nature.

He gives his harness bells a shake; to ask is there is some mistake. ” The isolated settings in both poems use nature as a sphere of contemplation, something that is lacking in our own lives. Frost finds the extraordinary in the odd, and conveys this via his use of an ambiguous tone and his unique concepts about human limitation. His ideas stay relevant today and reading one of his poems forces the audience to reflect on life’s journey. As Frost mentioned, “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom,”