The Apple Tree
by John Galsworthy
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One of his five best stories is what Nobel Prize winner John Galsworthy called The apple tree, a short novel published in 1916.
It is a beautifully written Romantic story, that begins when Frank Ashurst and his wife Stella stop for a rest in the countryside near Torquay, and a wayside grave triggers a flashback to a hiking trek Frank made as a young man through the area.
Twenty-six years earlier, Ashurst and a friend wandered when Ashurst hurt himself and was taken in by some common people at a farm to recover. During his stay he fell in love with the daughter of the family, called Megan. It is only with the greatest hesitation that Megan, betrothed to a loutish local boy, opens her heart to Ashley, who willfully seduces her to kiss under show more the apple tree. When he leaves, he promises Megan that he will be back to marry her.
However, in Torquay he meets Stella who is also very beautiful, and besides, Stella is of a much better social standing than Megan. The story portrays his struggle to break his promise, rationalizing his decision, and eventually marrying Stella. With deep regret, he gives up his first love, Megan. His second love, while not as passionate, develops naturally, and the class difference between Megan and Stella makes him realize, a marriage with Megan would have been foolish.
At the time, Ashurst could well imagine how unhappy Megan would have been, waiting for his return in vain. The discovery of the wayside grave drives home the shock and deep regret of abandoning his first love. He asks an old man about the grave, and hears how heartbroken Megan waited and finally killed herself over grief.
The apple tree is not merely a beautiful and tragic story. Clearly, Ashurst's marriage with Stella is far from ideal, and part of his regret for his first love, Megan, is that he might have been happier with her. Ashurst's regret is not just about what he lost: he feels guilty of breaking Megan's heart, and in now further burdened by her suicide. But while Ashurst's love for Megan seemed pure enough, there were constant reminders of their inequality. Much of the love affair was initiated by Ashurst, who in all matters seemed more knowledgeable, more mature. Their love was not as pure as it seemed, instead it was tinged by Ashurst's intellectual deliberations, his pity for Megan and his aristocratic condescension. After all, it was but a bit of play. More than about love, The apple tree is a novella about class. show less
It is a beautifully written Romantic story, that begins when Frank Ashurst and his wife Stella stop for a rest in the countryside near Torquay, and a wayside grave triggers a flashback to a hiking trek Frank made as a young man through the area.
Twenty-six years earlier, Ashurst and a friend wandered when Ashurst hurt himself and was taken in by some common people at a farm to recover. During his stay he fell in love with the daughter of the family, called Megan. It is only with the greatest hesitation that Megan, betrothed to a loutish local boy, opens her heart to Ashley, who willfully seduces her to kiss under show more the apple tree. When he leaves, he promises Megan that he will be back to marry her.
However, in Torquay he meets Stella who is also very beautiful, and besides, Stella is of a much better social standing than Megan. The story portrays his struggle to break his promise, rationalizing his decision, and eventually marrying Stella. With deep regret, he gives up his first love, Megan. His second love, while not as passionate, develops naturally, and the class difference between Megan and Stella makes him realize, a marriage with Megan would have been foolish.
At the time, Ashurst could well imagine how unhappy Megan would have been, waiting for his return in vain. The discovery of the wayside grave drives home the shock and deep regret of abandoning his first love. He asks an old man about the grave, and hears how heartbroken Megan waited and finally killed herself over grief.
The apple tree is not merely a beautiful and tragic story. Clearly, Ashurst's marriage with Stella is far from ideal, and part of his regret for his first love, Megan, is that he might have been happier with her. Ashurst's regret is not just about what he lost: he feels guilty of breaking Megan's heart, and in now further burdened by her suicide. But while Ashurst's love for Megan seemed pure enough, there were constant reminders of their inequality. Much of the love affair was initiated by Ashurst, who in all matters seemed more knowledgeable, more mature. Their love was not as pure as it seemed, instead it was tinged by Ashurst's intellectual deliberations, his pity for Megan and his aristocratic condescension. After all, it was but a bit of play. More than about love, The apple tree is a novella about class. show less
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At age 28, after a gentlemanly education at Harrow and Oxford, and a training at law, Galsworthy settled into simultaneous careers as a novelist and a playwright. The Silver Box, Galsworthy's first successful drama, was staged in 1906, the year he published the first volume of what was to become The Forsyte Saga. His one-word titles - Justice show more (1910), Strife (1909), Loyalties (1922)---suggest the nature of Galsworthy's artistic ambition: to generalize a social indictment, keeping faith with the objective methods of naturalism. In each, Galsworthy favors an austere irony and unresolvable situations, and balanced moral positions are displayed in the cabinetwork of "well-made" playwrighting. Reputed to have led to reforms in its time, his realism today seems contrived to produce aesthetic distance and a sense of resignation that is precisely what contemporary political dramatists strain hardest to avoid. Not surprisingly, critics have come away from revivals with the sense that (especially in his spare language) Galsworthy anticipates Harold Pinter rather than more socially engaged playwrights. Galsworthy wrote novels and plays alternately throughout his life. His masterwork, The Forsyte Saga, begun in 1906 and finished in 1928, and consisting of six separate novels and two linking interludes, is the most famous example of the sequence novel in English literature. It is a study of the property sense, the possessive spirit, in different individuals and generations of English middle-class society. He also completed a second trilogy dealing with the Forsyte family, called A Modern Comedy (1928). His last trilogy, a study of the Charwell family, is called End of the Chapter (1933). Galsworthy's later years brought him many honors, including the presidency of P.E.N. and honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, and several other universities. After World War I, he was offered a knighthood, which he refused. He did, however, accept the Order of Merit in 1929, and in 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. He was, however, too ill to attend the Nobel ceremony and died within two months of receiving the award. Although his posthumous reputation had waned, the centenary of his death, in 1967, brought a re-creation of The Forsyte Saga on British and American television in serial form. Interest in him skyrocketed, and the Forsyte novels again became bestsellers. With new popularity came fresh critical analysis. Pamela Hansford Johnson called The Forsyte Saga "a work of profound social insight and patchy psychological insight" (N.Y. Times). His critical writings include The Inn of Tranquility: Studies and Essays (1911) and Author and Critic. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Apple Tree
- Alternate titles
- Under the Apple Tree
- Original publication date
- 1918
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Statistics
- Members
- 44
- Popularity
- 671,155
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- 5 — Chinese, English, Finnish, Russian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
