Analysis: After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the poem of Robert Frost, “After Apple Picking” with race and post colonial literary criticism. The subject of racism has been a lively topic for critical debate since approximately the 1950s, with critics examining the treatment of various kinds of discrimination based on race, religion, or gender in literary works, both past and present, as well as in the attitudes of the writers themselves. In some cases racism is a prominent, or even the chief theme, while in other works critics have revealed racist attitudes that serve as underlying assumptions, but may not be immediately evident to the reader. One of the more obvious things to look at is the author. What was Robert Frost like? What type of home did he grow up in? What do you think his personal beliefs were concerning different types of discrimination? While doing some research I read that Robert Frost’s grandfather, whom he lived with, was the overseer of a cotton mill.

Among the major responsibilities of the overseer were the welfare and discipline of the slaves. With that being said Robert Frost was not a stranger to racism.

First, you can infer this poem does not take place in modern day time. Reason being, is because the author says, “My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree” so the narrator obviously has one of those old-fashioned ladders with the two points at the end that you have to lean against the tree.

Next you have to look at the narrator and the actual things they say. In lines 3-6 the narrator says “And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now.” The narrator could be an African American living during the times of slavery. The apples could represent different white people that he thought where all the same. The poem says “and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.”. These could represent the