An Apple Gathering

Question 1

An Apple Gathering: Title Connotations

Answer 1

Apple - in the Victorian era fruit was associated with sexual offerings
- apple - fertility
- religious connotations = fruit of temptation/sexual temptation
- gathering - harvesting, plentiful, community which she is excluded from

Question 2

An Apple Gathering: Form & Structure

Answer 2

1st person perspective - person centred, helps to explore her emotions & her suffering thus Rossetti isn’t critical of her decisions/actions
- each stanza ends w/ catalectic line - exaggerates her isolation & barrenness

Question 3

‘I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree…wore them all evening in my hair…found no apples there’

Answer 3

• ‘plucked’ active, carefree - loss of virginity
• Plosive alliteration emphasises impulsivity
• mine = possessive, takes ownership
• hair - sexual connotations, promiscuity, highly sexualised - publicly displays her sexual activity??
• no apples - lacks fertility ? marriage offers? possibility of getting married?

Question 4

An Apple Gathering: The Fallen woman as ostracised from society

Answer 4

• SF of social ridicule: ‘neighbours mocked me’ & ‘heaped up basket teazed me like a jeer’ = conjures this image of an unforgiving, exceptionally cruel society in which the suffering of a woman is seen as a comedy.

AO3/5: A commentary and critique of Victorian society’s treatment of the ‘fallen woman’ as Rossetti herself clearly believed that the ‘fallen woman’ could be reformed as she worked in Highgate Penitentiary were she dealt w/ women of this category.

-‘I loitered…I loitered still’ - the static imagery here depicts the plight of the ‘fallen woman’ who is relegated to a life of non-progression. She is marked as an outsider and an outlier in polite Victorian society as she fails to follow the same path. Creates a rather bleak future for the ‘fallen woman’ as she has no other option, no potential for salvation or progression seen. = Rossetti perhaps criticising Victorian society’s steadfast villainization of the ‘promiscuous’ woman as she posits the idea that this woman could have been saved by those who pass her, yet because society is so unwilling to forgive her for her transgressions she is ostracised.

Question 5

‘I let my neighbours pass me’ vs ‘I plucked pink blossoms…’

Answer 5

Contrast between 1st line of 1st stanza & 1st line of last
Narrator becomes v. passive, she is in stasis - metaphor for how she has no other path to follow - her exploration of sexuality has reduced her options