The unnamed speaker of “After Apple-Picking” is very interested in his subjective experience of apple picking while awake and asleep. This focus on subjectivity is evident through the frequent use of first-person pronouns throughout the poem, such as “I.” But despite the prevalence of “I” throughout the poem, the speaker comes to realize his lack of personal agency. Even in his own dreams, his own mind is confined by the sense of sleepiness that makes him escape into the dream world in the first place. The speaker’s subconscious wishes and automatic biological desires limit him even in his sleep – “I am overtired / Of the great harvest I myself desired” (28-29). As such, despite being the narrator of his own experiences, the speaker appears to have little agency and free choice. Therefore, his tone frequently reads as fatalistic and self-defeating.

Nonetheless, the speaker subtly suggests ways to...