apple tree

Analysis of “Apple Tree” (extract) John Galsworthy is an English writer of XIX-XX centuries famous for The Forsyte Saga and he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1932. It is important to know, that he started his literary career with long short stories, and The Apple Tree, which was published in 1917, is one of the most popular by Galsworthy. This extract does not say anything in particular about the whole story, but we can see very vividly the beginning of certain kind of events. Basically, it is an exposition of the story, where we find out two friends, Frank and Robert, who were on a tramp, met one girl, and asked her to admit them to stay for the night at hers. In this short author shows us a great skill of describing characters, we can not only see, but also feel the characters, to understand them. Description of the landscape and the name of the story help us to know the character of Ashurst, what he is going to do. As everybody knows, an apple is a symbol of lapse from virtue according to the biblical legends. In the fourth paragraph, Frank was impressed by the girl and her beauty, and the nature helped us to recognize what kind of person is Ashurst. So, he is romantic, scatter-brained and certainly, he is a dreamer. We can say it for sure, because author gave very poetic description for his thoughts and feelings. In the beginning of the text we see direct description of his character: “Ashurst pale, idealistic, full of absence”, and also we can see what kind of man he is through indirect portrait, for example, this sentence pictures Ashurst’s nature very vividly: “Every bough was swinging in the wind, every spring bird calling, and a slanting sunlight dappled the grass. He thought of Theocritus, and the river Cherwell, of the moon, and the maiden with the dewy eyes; of so many things that he seemed to think of nothing; and he felt absurdly happy.” Apparently, he does not know that he is going to commit a sin, at least such romantic people are not