Symbolic Significance in the Speaker’s Statement? “This Sleep of Mine Whatever Sleep it is” in the Poem “After Apple-Picking”
In
the poem, “After Apple- Picking” the speaker, after hard work of picking apples
from his tree, feels overtired, and expects to have sleep. He expresses his
expectation of a sleep of which he cannot be sure of the kind. Says, “One can see what will trouble/ This
sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is”. He himself conjectures about it, it may
be 
the sleep like that of a woodchuck, or it may be the sleep like of a human being. The woodchuck is a little animal which goes into hibernation for about nine cold months of a year. And a human being sleeps only for several hours a day. When the speaker says his sleeps may be like that of a woodchuck, the poet symbolically means death- death after life’s fitful toils. The speaker expects death after a life of unsatisfactory activities which still leave his desire unfulfilled. If he will have a sleep like that of a human, it also symbolize his fitful activities and rest alternately which will go on for a long time continually, but still his dreams of life will remain unfulfilled.
the sleep like that of a woodchuck, or it may be the sleep like of a human being. The woodchuck is a little animal which goes into hibernation for about nine cold months of a year. And a human being sleeps only for several hours a day. When the speaker says his sleeps may be like that of a woodchuck, the poet symbolically means death- death after life’s fitful toils. The speaker expects death after a life of unsatisfactory activities which still leave his desire unfulfilled. If he will have a sleep like that of a human, it also symbolize his fitful activities and rest alternately which will go on for a long time continually, but still his dreams of life will remain unfulfilled.
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