Angus

The poems: ‘’After Apple Picking’’ and ‘’The Road Not Taken’’, both by Robert Frost are poems that compare the processes of a journey in a person’s lifetime. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the meanings of both poems and link them together based on the journey, how phrases from one poem could link it to another, and lastly, what it wants to tell us in the summary of the journey.
The poem ‘’After the Apple Picking’’ by Robert Frost, speaks about how after a long day’s work, he is tired of apple picking. He has felt drowsy and dreamy since the morning when he looked through a sheet of ice lifted from the surface of a water trough. He speaks about his day’s work as an apple picker. How a single mistake can turn the beautiful apple into a useless piece only fit for different purposes (apple cider). Now he feels tired, feels sleep coming on, but wonders whether it is a normal, end-of-the-day sleep or something deeper. When translated into the present day, this can be used in the scenario of someone dying, thinking of his life’s journeys. Every apple, representing a choice, can be dropped, and a journey could be altered and negatively affected. He feels dissatisfied on how he missed out on some chances, and wishes he could go back and fix that situation. However, he learns that not every negative will stay a negative. A bad decision could turn out better in another way (bad apples turning into cider) and ends as he says ‘’long sleep as I describe its coming on’’ signifying his imminent passing.
The poem ‘’The Road Not Taken’’ also by Robert Frost speaks about how he came upon a path that split in the autumn forest, and for an unidentified reason, couldn’t travel on both paths. Upon thinking for a long period of time, he tried to find the positives and negatives of traveling on either one of the paths. He noticed that one of the paths was a path that wasn’t often used by travellers, with undergrowth reaching far into the path, and not being used, was...