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The poem ‘After Apple Picking’ by Robert Frost mentions about ‘WOODCHUCK’. Now our literature teacher told us that it is a bird in New England which symbolizes hope and that its hibernation is just like death, but in our book it is written that it is a North American marmot with heavy body and short legs rather than a bird, so who is right?
it is like the marmot or in america the groundhog famous from the belief that if the groundhog sees its shadow on february second it will be frightened and there will be six more weeks of winter. If it doesn't see its shadow (because of overcast skies) the winter will end soon.
This tradition is most famously continued in the New England area of the US, and is demonstrated in the Movie Groundhogs Day
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stiffeny Brown
Her symbolism is on target though, as far as I'm concerned.
“Frost takes an ordinary experience and transforms it into a meditative moment, a philosophical musing. Apple-picking slides gradually away from merely harvesting fruit to considering how life has been experienced fully but with some regrets and mistakes. The reference to winter coming on feels like the presence of mortalilty. The question about what kind of sleep to anticipate suggests untroubled oblivion or possibly some kind of new life just as the woodchuck reawakens to fresh life in the spring after his hibernation.”