Point of View

“After Apple-Picking” is written from a first-person point of view through an unnamed speaker. The speaker details and philosophizes about his dream on apple-picking while sleeping following his waking experience of apple-picking.

However, despite his emphasis on the experience of his own inner life, the speaker often questions his own agency. For example, rather than his dream world being a place for the completely limitless thought, the speaker notes how his own subconscious desires undermine the free play of his mind: “I am overtired / Of the great harvest I myself desired” (28-29). From the speaker’s recognition of his own mind’s inherent limitations arises questions regarding the nature of free will – even in a seemingly unbounded mental landscape, such as a dream, can the mind ever truly overcome the biological needs that require we respond to feelings like being “overtired?”

The speaker’s recognition...