Lovely Literature

'Toads" is an extended metaphor that continues through the poem comparing a toad to something that is responsible for controlling the speaker's and other peoples lives. This poem uses many alliterations [Lots of folks live on their wits/lecturers, lispers/losels, loblolly men, louts] and has incredible diction. The diction along with repetition helps the speaker get his point across. He is not just going to sit down and allow the "toad," or "the man," run his life. At the same time, the speaker seems almost envious of the toads because they do not have to worry about making money.

"Their nippers have got bare feet
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets--and yet
No one actually starves,"

This stanza makes me think that the speaker wishes he could have a wife "skinny as a whippet" just because she watches what she eats, not because she is starving. He wants to live a lush life and not stick to what the man says. He wants to be "The Man."

The final stanza makes this point yet again.

"I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both."

The speaker is referring to the "fame and the girl and the money." He seems to think that once you have one, it's difficult to lose the other. He definitely seems to think he is stuck in his life and not moving along. His diction shows his passion and somewhat angry feelings for those who are of higher authority and salary than he.

I could consider Robert Frost as one of my favorite poets because when he writes, he uses such vivid imagery that it isn't an overkill, but it more clearly explains what is going on [unlike Emily Dickenson].

When I read After Apple Picking, the first thing I thought was this entire poem is an extended metaphor. It is a metaphor for starting something with passion and excitement and watching it slowly fizzle out as the task continues on. Humans have that weakness, that temptation to quit something when they do not have their whole heart into it.

"And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have hadtoo much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired."

Actually, that quote reminds me of myself at times when I take on too many things at once and just get tired of doing them all. I like to be busy 24/7, but there are days that I become so worn out that I just want to quit everything I am doing and just sit down for a while. The poem goes on to talk about how "all that struck the earth, no matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, went surely to the cider-apple heap," which gives the impression that it doesn't really matter if there are imperfections as long as it is the best it can be, it will be used. More people need to realize this in life. Even if something is not perfect or exactly as planned, it can still have the best outcome possible.

So far, I've noticed that O'Brien loves his literary devices. I'm still not very far into the book, but I've found a great extended metaphor he uses to compare the military men to actors.

"It wasn't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn't just dying, because in a curious way it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself," [page 19].

O'Brien's metaphor elaborates on how commonly accepted death has become in the military. One day a soldier can be saving a fellow soldier, and the next day, that hero is dead. Since it happens in the blink of an eye, how can they even prepare for death? I've come to the conclusion that being a soldier prepares one not only for battle, but also for death. Depressing, huh?

I'd also like to connect this to a post Alix Richardson recently wrote. She said that from previous knowledge, the war was extremely unpopular on the US homefront. While America was not fully behind entrance into the Vietnam war, they still supported the men who were deployed. O'Brien writes, "...they would never be at a loss for things to carry" [page 15], referring not only to the heavy burdens they were carrying, but also the lists of food, weaponry, and other supplies he wrote about just sentences before. America, while not open to the war, was still cognizant of their boys fighting their lives away.