Essay Database

Frost leaves the reader with two main questions in this poem: What sort of sleep is he referring to? What is it that troubles him so? The typical form of sleep, most often associated in poetry, is death. The poem speaks of a rest from picking apples which could be a reference to the Garden of Eden. After the apple was picked (and, of course, eaten) man was cast into a world of sin, death, …

…is similar. "Essence of winter sleep is on the night,/The scent of apples: I am drowsing off." (lines 7-8). Perhaps the narrator is in a drowsy state, an almost hibernation-like level, the type of hibernation that the earth goes into during the winter time. I believe that the mention of the woodchuck is just another throw back to nature. It's as though Frost is comparing nature and human - their differences, their similarities, etc.