Tired to Death, At Best

Frost's poetry is deceptively simple. At first reading, it would appear as though Frost's poetry is straightforward. However, it is not. His poetry is laced with metaphors about life, stopping to smell the roses, and what it actually means to be a good neighbor. In "After Apple-Picking" it appears as though a man has worked very hard to pick all of his apples. He states that many went to the cider-apple heap as if they meant nothing and no energy was given to them. This man has worked for a long time and wants the readers to know it. In the final lines of the poem, the man states that he is about to enter sleep. He comments that the woodchuck may look and think that the man is entering a hibernation sleep or a regular human sleep. The man narrates that it would be hard to tell because the man is simply so tired. Overall, this poem talks about apple picking, but is actually talking about the man's tiredness. It almost seems like the man dreads not picking apples. This may be a stretch, but the fact that the woodchuck would seem confused about hibernation or a regular human sleep may be because the man looks like death and has worked himself to that point. This is how simple Frost's poetry is. All of this meaning came from a couple of lines, but was easy enough to determine it from a second read or even a first one, unlike the readings from Crane.