Context
Composed in 1857 and published in
Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), this poem is written at a time when
Rossetti has lost her first love, James Collinson, after his flitting between
Catholicism and Anglicanism left them with irreconcilable differences.
Don’t accept for a second that
Rossetti’s poems are all biographical, but we have to acknowledge that for a
poet to create a piece of work so deeply emotional, they must have had personal
inspiration to feed their ideas. While I don’t always find Rossetti’s poems to
address aspects of her personal life, I think this can easily be seen as doing
so in some respects. However, her personal experiences are mixed in with the
fate of a fallen woman – someone who is deemed unworthy by society usually as a
result of sexual promiscuity outside of marriage – which is a common theme and
something Rossetti is clearly passionate about in her life – restoring the
fallen.
themes
The main theme here is gender and the
role of women in the world – she explores the frustration of not being able to
realise the role of wife and mother. If you see this as not being biographical
then you could see this as being about a ‘fallen’ woman who has been left
undesirable after enjoying sexual relations out of wedlock – in a similar way
to Maude Clare and Cousin Kate. There could also be a link to religion here in
that she could be interpreted as seeing her earlier sinning as the cause of her
current misfortune.
Content
We open with a confession that Rossetti has enjoyed herself in
the apple orchard before the fruit was ripe. Picking the blossoms should be
seen her as enjoying some sort of romantic relationship or love, but clearly
she feels she has experienced this before she was ready.
Now if we don’t read this as being biographical then we could
associate this with a girl who has had a bit of a roll in the grass with some
chappy outside of wedlock. In which case she is unable to gather her apples
now, when she wants them, due to social stigma associated with non-virgin bride
wannabes. Don’t imagine she is talking about underage sex, Victorian
society was extremely prudish and sex outside of marriage would have been
enough to regard someone as being unready.
If you prefer to see it as biographical and see this as focusing
on her experience of innocent love and affection. She finds love before she is
ready for it and then feels like she will never find it again. If she was 27
when she wrote this, she would be old by Victorian standards to be still
looking for a husband and to settle down.
Whoever this woman is, she feels like others are laughing at her
misfortune as she walks along empty handed. She laments their happiness and the
fact that these couples also appear to be pregnant. It seems that the final
couple she feels envious of is made up of one ‘plump Gertrude’ and our poetic
voice’s ‘Ah Willie’, presumably her former love. Her misery comes from the fact
that she feels she was just as worthy as Gertrude and could offer just as much.
The final stanza sees her being passed by all and sundry, but
she remains in the orchard as night falls hoping for some coupling of her own.
The end of the day should here signify life and she feels like she will be
waiting, desperate, all her life for love and fulfillment to come along.
Language and techniques
Let’s start with the apple tree. It can be seen as a symbol in
two ways. Firstly, if we are thinking about a ‘fallen’ woman then the apple
being ‘plucked’ before ‘due season’ can be compared with Eve’s scrumping in the
Garden of Eden. Thus she has given in to temptation and as a result been barred
from paradise. Through comparison the poetic voice wouldn’t be barred from
heaven necessarily, but she feels her reputation has been tainted and prevents
men from wanting to marry her and settle down.
Secondly, think about the apple as representing fertility. She
found love when the tree was in ‘pink blossom’, which implies youthful beauty,
but perhaps a sense of not yet being ready with no fruit on the branches. Her
youthful love has been celebrated as these blossoms were worn ‘all that evening
in my hair’. When she wants to experience the joys of motherhood, however,
there are ‘no apples there’ meaning she has no chance as her only love affair
has come to an end. You can sense her desire to experience motherhood as she
looks at others with ‘their heaped-up basket’ and others with ‘basket full’ and
considers them to have ‘teazed’ her – others possessing what she wants feels
like an insult and jab at her.
I’d also focus specifically on how Rossetti uses language to
convey a sense of worthlessness associated with not achieving womanly
fulfillment. The other people referred to in the poem ‘mocked her’, the basket
‘teazed [her] with a jeer’, while she can’t understand why her former love
found another more worthy when she says ‘was my love less worth…?’ You can
interpret this in two ways: (1) society looks down at her and scorns her for
her youthful folly of getting jigging with it without a ring on her finger; (2)
she feels personally ashamed and just feels like others are judging her even if
they are not actually paying her any direct attention. We all know this second
feeling, which is usually baseless, but difficult to dismiss.
Let’s have a look at these people who she perceives are laughing
at her. First of all we have her ‘neighbours’ and there is an implication
within this that they are her peers and more similar than alike, but yet they
are celebrating her misfortune: is this a comment on Victorian values and
particularly lack of sisterhood amongst Victorian women? Potentially.
However, the next people are named. Lilian and Lilias (nice that
their names make up a set, like my parents: Jan and John), but why has Rossetti
chosen these names? Both stem from the word lily, which we’ve explored before
here is used as a symbol for
birth and potentially also for innocence. So our poetic voice is
both jealous of their ability to begin a family and the innocence that they
have retained allowing them to attain marriage.
I’m not so sure about Gertrude. The only famous Gertrude I am
aware of is Hamlet’s mother, and this could potentially be a link as Rossetti’s
voice in the poem might want to imply this woman is not as innocent and pure as
she may appear and thus should not be seen as above our speaker in terms of worth.
If you don’t know Hamlet’s mother is a little strumpet who was probably having
it off with her husband’s brother before her fella was killed and married him
afterwards. It does sound like a plausible link, but it is difficult to tell if
this is just my overactive imagination.
As for our poetic voice’s former lover, Willie, I will leave you
to consider any significance in the choice of name. If you want to be dirty,
then fine, but I’m not sure Rossetti would approve!
Mention the rhetorical question used her that stresses how
frustrated she feels by being abandoned in favour of another. She also talks
about how the ‘rosiest apples’, which I’d take as the most innocent and
attractive virgins, are of ‘far less worth than love’ demonstrating her
frustration that her sin counts against her (even though presumably it was with
Willie! Hypocrisy!) even though she would be a better wife and love him more
dearly than this other strumpet.
Almost done now!
I’d also mention the definitive ‘we shall not walk again!’ that
implies that Rossetti/the poetic voice feels that she is destitute and will not
achieve the happiness and love she wants. However, perhaps contrast this sense
of definitive misery with the hope that seems hopeless with the fact she
‘loitered’ as the day faded in the apple orchard. She repeats this twice and
this shows how desperation she is for fulfillment and some change to her
circumstances.
Structure
I feel the regularity of the stanza structure and the rhyme
scheme (ABAB) reflects the sense of misery and permanence that our speaker
feels about her current situation. The simplicity of the rhyming words and in
fact pretty much the whole poem mirrors the innocence of our speaker, who has
strained through youthful naiviety rather than through being a terrible person
or sinner.
Tone
Melancholy as she contemplates what
could have been, but seems lost in a sense that her misery, loneliness, the
stigma against her and her lack of fulfillment as a woman will be permanent.
A Critical Analysis on 'An Apple
Gathering' by Christina Rossetti
The
poem ‘An Apple Gathering’ by Christina Rossetti talks about a betrayed love or
an unfulfillment of love.The condition of a betrayed girl and the harsh
treatment on her by the society is vividly pictured in this poem. The poet
symbolizes the action of losing chastity or virginity, by the action of
plucking ‘pink blossoms’ of an apple tree. After losing her chastity and being
betrayed, the speaker faces a dangling condition which is symbolized by her
‘dangling basket’. This condition is also contrasted showing the ‘heaped-up
basket’ of the other girls. When she sees other girls not betrayed in
love happily singing, smiling, she laments over her ill fate. The use of
symbolism to show all these, is really very authentic throughout the whole
poem.
The
idea of losing chastity comes to the mind of the reader just at the beginning
stanza of the poem.
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair;
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
‘Blossom’
means a small flower which grows in a fruit producing tree and goes on to
become a fruit afterwards. So, if the blossoms are plucked, there will be no
fruit afterwards. Such is the case here in this poem which says that the
speaker foolishly plucked the ‘pink blossoms’ of her‘apple tree and wore them all
that evening’ in her hair to find no apple in‘due season’. This can very
logically be interpreted that the speaker has given away her chastity being
involved in a love relationship. As she wore the blossoms in her hair all the
evening, it suggests that she willingly plucked those blossoms and was very
happy. This clearly means that she willingly and happily gave away her chastity
to her lover. Then there is a very important phrase ‘due season’ which
obviously is the symbolism of the time after being betrayed. So, finding no
apples in the tree in due season tells the story of the speakers finding
herself aloof from her chastity after the betrayal of her lover. So, in brief
the poet here has described this betrayal with the metaphor of plucking pink
blossoms.
The
next four lines describe the social circumstances of the speaker after
‘plucking pink blossoms’ which actually tries to portray the picture of the
social condition of the speaker after the matter of losing her virginity and
being betrayed becomes a very common issue to discuss among her neighbors. The
lines are-
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame
track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
The
phrase ‘dangling basket’ here symbolizes the dangling condition of the
speaker.It is obvious that after losing her chastity, the life of that girl
usually has no particular way, no particular standpoint and no particular future.
So life becomes uncertain and that is why the condition is ‘dangling’. The use
of metaphor is again very much effective. The speakers’ basket has no apple and
it is empty and that is why it dangles when she walks. With no ‘apple’ or
chastity in her she is also empty and her life is dangling thus. The neighbors
are‘mocking’ her seeing her dangling empty basket which clearly shows the very
common picture of the society in which the girl is living. This betrayal is
undoubtedly a great issue to gossip and the betrayed girl is so a person to be
mocked. It is very conventional that others will mock or tease someone behind
his/her back. So this betrayed girl will have to face so many ill treatments
and mocking when she will pass the ‘self-same track’. Especially when it is the
girl's own fault to bring her ill-state, she has no other way except tolerating
these. The same path which she passes with the others in her society becomes
afar more difficult road to her than the others.
Then
comes the contrastive situation of other girls around the speaker in the next
stanza.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.
This
contrast is done with the phrase ‘heaped-up basket’. Where there is an
emptiness is shown of the speaker with the phrase ‘dangling basket’ in the last
stanza, here the case is completely different. The speaker names of two
girls ‘Lilian and Lilias’ who are smiling when they are ‘trudging by’. So the
two girls are walking slowly or with heavy steps as they have to carry their
‘heaped-up basket’ full of apples.But they are not at all unhappy to carry this
‘heaped-up basket’ as they are smiling and singing in sweet-voice. When does a
woman usually bear the utmost pain yet feel no pain at all? If this
question is answered, the answer will be at the time of their ‘pregnancy’. Here
Lilian and Lilias are ‘trudging by’ meaning walking with big steps which can
easily be interpreted that these two girls are pregnant and as they are
carrying child, they feel no pain at all rather they are happily smiling and
singing. This interpretation becomes even more logical when in the last line
the speaker talks about their mother’s home. It is a very common tradition that
at the time of pregnancy a woman usually goes to her mother’s home and here the
two women are on the way to their mother’s home. So, these two girls are not
betrayed in love like the speaker of this poem because they are not unhappy
like her. They are happily carrying child and going to their mother’s home.
This is the perfect contrast condition shown in these four lines. Moreover,
there is an authentic use of‘pathetic fallacy’ when it is said that the
‘heaped-up basket’ is teasing the speaker ‘like a jeer’. Here the speaker
apparently wants to say that Lilian and Lilias have apples in their basket
where as her basket is empty which clearly is suggesting that when the other
girls are happy in their life, the speaker is empty losing her most precious
thing in her life. Those girls may have lost virginity like her and carrying a
child in their womb but they are not victims of betrayed love like her. And
that is why undoubtedly they are heaped with happiness. On the contrary the
speaker is in a dangling state. How can a woman being empty tolerate this happy
situation of other women? She will rather think that this situation could be
hers if everything were alright. She could be a same happy girl like them. And
this thought of her will definitely kill her inside though by lips she will be
able to utter no words. That is the state of the speaker only to see good
situations of others and become burnt inside.
The
next stanza continues to show the contrast situation of another girl called
‘Plump Gertrude’.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.
In
this stanza a vital symbolism is presented in the phrase ‘a stronger hand’
which suggests the lover or may be the husband of Plump Gertrude. Plump
Gertrude is walking on the same street like the other two girls called Lilian
and Lilias mentioned in the previous stanza. Her basket is also full like them.
She is being helped by her man while she is walking and that man is not only
helping in walking but also talking to her. It is very usual that when a wife
is pregnant she needs walking and a caring husband undoubtedly will accompany
her in her walk. That is what the picture here in this poem which is even more
intolerable for the speaker.The reason is that this girl is with her man and in
this very stage of the speaker’s life what she is utterly missing is none other
than a caring beloved. That is why the voice of this man, the presence of this
man with Plump Gertrude is‘more sweet’ to her than the song singing by Lilian
and Lilias. Just like this girl Plump Gertrude she could be in her lover’s arms
and living a happy life.This picture of Plump Gertrude could have been hers if
she was blessed in love.The man of hers could be with her and just like this
talk to her with his sweet voice. This stronger hand here not only suggests a
man who is only helping in a walk but also this stronger hand suggests a person
who will always be by the side of this girl for the whole walk of life. This
stronger hand seems promising to help this girl in her every weakness, in her
every bad patches, in her every pain and suffering just like he is doing now.
This stronger hand is a person to whom this girl Plump Gertrude can depend even
with her closed eyes.This promise of lifetime shown in the couple of Plump
Gertrude and her man is stabbing her heart as she is not blessed in love rather
tragically betrayed.
The
next stanza presents for the first time the lover of the speaker and the very
reason why the speaker has willingly given her chastity up.
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.
Here
the speaker is lamenting uttering the name of her lover ‘Willie’ and asking him
the question which only can come from a broken heart. She asks Willie if
her‘love’ was ‘less worth’ than the ‘apples’. It can only mean if her love was
less worthy to Willie than her chastity. Was Willie with her only to take her
chastity? Did he not see the love of her? And if he saw the love, was it
nothing to him? On the contrary she counted ‘rosieset apple on the earth of far
less worth than love’. Unquestionably speaker’s chastity is suggested by the
phrase ‘rosiest apple’. To her love was the most important thing and everything
else is less worthy. She did not at all think that her lover will come out a
betrayer and leave her in this life of loneliness and utmost sufferings. For
love she trusted and only for love she considered the chastity, the most important
thing of a girl’s life, of far less worth.
Then
in the next stanza the speaker remembers the days of her with her lover and by
that the very nature of her lover is revealed.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!
She
tells that it was her lover ‘stooped to talk’ and he used to laughing and
listening to her while he was talking to her right in this way in which the
speaker is standing now. This lover is just a man of chance. He has no care for
love. He only intended to impress the girl and enjoy her chastity. That is why
to impress her he even stooped to talk, he laughed while he is talking, and
with fake concern he listened what she says. All these were done only to win
the heart and cast that away later. This image of the lover is actually telling
the story of how this kind of lustful and clever persons tricks the girls like
the speaker here.After all these when the lover betrays her, she finds herself
alone in the same way on which they used to walk again. This walking is again
suggests the future life of the speaker. She thought to walk with her lover for
all her life, in this way it was there to walk together but it never will be.
The agony of a broken heart is vividly shown here. May be this lover Willie is
making business with any other girl, may be he is taking lot more other chances
but this girl has none to walk with her now. She must walk alone now in this
pathetic world of her.
The
last stanza again brings the picture of the society in treating her and the
harsh reality around her.
I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
Here
the speaker being all alone let her neighbours pass her but the latest among
them comes to her only to say that the night is growing cold and hastened in
his way. This suggests the common scenario of society when someone is in
distress. Almost everybody has no concern with her fate, all of them are busy
in their own walk of life. They have no time to think of others, they have no
time to lose in any others sake. That is how society goes. If one stands on his
street, one will only watch others pass. No matter how big one's trouble is,
one will have to face it alone. But the situation is even tougher when some so
called well wishers try to give advice rather than really helping.That is what
here is happening in this poem when the speaker finds one person coming to her
and saying that the night is growing cold as if the speaker cannot see that.
Instead of really asking why the speaker is standing alone rather than walking
while the night is growing cold, the neighbour is saying that the night is
growing cold. And he bothers not an answer from the speaker. He hastens in his
way. It is like telling a person in distress that he is in distress and leaving
him. The person knows he is in distress. So, is it of any use? The speaker
knows that the night is growing cold but she instead of walking loiters. Here
the symbolism of night is of a great importance. The night stands for the night
like condition of the speaker. Her life has now no purpose and so she only
loiters instead of walking. She has nowhere to go like Lilian, Lilias or Plump
Gertrude, she has no destiny, no real meaning of life. That is why even
the 'dews' were falling she 'loitered still'. This negative imagery of dews
suggest that when her life becomes tougher and tougher, she has no other way
except loitering. She has lost all the strength to walk, She does not know what
to do as everything seems to her meaningless.
Thus
the poem ends with telling the error of a judgment and the result of it. The
girl was confident about the loyalty of her lover but it proves otherwise. She
trusted and gave away herself too soon. That is why she ends up measuring the
difference between what is and what could have been. She embraces endless
sufferings, endless loneliness, endless lamenting and endless loitering.
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