An Apple Gathering

Question 1

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

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

ostracised from society

Answer 4

‘neighbours mocked me’
‘heaped up basket teazed me like a jeer’
‘I loitered…I loitered still’

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