The apple tree

The apple tree，the pity loveThe apple tree is one of the most famous nouvelle written by John Galsworthy. Tomas Hardy once said that ‘The Apple tree’ was one of his favourite stories he had ever read.The story begins with a romantic silver-wedding trip to Torquary, a famous seaside sanitarium, where the hero Ashurst and his wife first met.On their halfway, They found a village with a certain rustic charm: a narrow strip of larch and beech, with here and there a pine, stretched out to the valley, a cuckoo was calling from a thorn tree, in the air the honeysavour of gorse stayed among the little fronds of the young fern. Everywhere overflowed with the sweet wind of spring, and theatmosphere of love. But in the beautiful scenery appeared a suic ide’s grave. It is no doubt an obvious contrast indicated that this place once hada loving tragedy.Y es, twenty-six years ago, romantic spring days as well, happenedan affecting loving story here. A country girl Megan met a city boy Ashurst (the hero), t he boy was moved by the girl’s wildflower like charming and beauty，as the writer’s words, ‘she was all simple, lovingnature and beauty, as much a part of the spring night as was the living blossom.’ The girl was attracted by the boy’s gentleman manners. Theydated under an apple tree, talking about their love and having their promise. That night Ashurst promised to take Megan to London to have their new life; that night Megan gave her heart to the man she wanted to resign her lifetime to, she promised, ‘I shall die if I can’t be with you!’ In this story, the description of the apple tree appeared several times. When they met, Megan told Ashurst her aunt’s farm, she mentioned the apple tree, and then the first time Ashurst put his lips to Megan’s hands in the pink clusters of the apple blossom, and finally they stood under the apple tree lips to lips. This is the process of their love, and the apple tree was the witness of their love and promise.From the beginning, we have known this loving story is a tragedy.The loving story begins with the apple tree, ends with it, too. Because after that night, Ashurst left the farm and disappeared. He intended to left for the other city to get money and buy Megan some clothes at first, but fell in love with a fitting alliance girl Stella. The comfortable life in city and the difference between the spirit of urban and rural areas made Ashurst forgot their affecting loving story. He and Stella got married. The writer use the mean of Plug Syria to describe the story, not only have an exact construction but also natural and smooth. The hero began to remind his calf love twenty-six years ago when they found the beautiful countryside and the suicide’s grave. But what he couldn’t remind was that Megan, his calf lover had already suicide after he left her, he lost the best things in life----‘the apple tree, the singing, and the gold.’ (This sentencecomes from Murray’s ‘Hippolytas of Euripides’, meaning nice love.) Spring is romantic and beautiful, but it’s also full of the rush of passion, when passion go away, things will be different. Twenty-six years ago was just Ashurst’s spring in his whole life, full of energy and the rush of passion, when the passion went away, he became sober: he couldn’t accept the distance between Megan and him. He just thought meeting Megan was ‘a wild love-time, a t roubled, remorseful, difficult time…’ In this story, conversation and interior monologue occupied the most part, many plots and people’s characteristics are reflected from them. Ashurst’s word’s always reflected his gentle.Megan, her aunt and cousin always pronounce wrong and have informal grammar. Moreover, the interior monologue also very important. The most typical monologue is when Ashurst saw Megan looking for him at the railway station, he was wondering about whether to meet her or not, after complicated struggle in psychology, Ashurst summarized his love with Megan and made the final decision: Abandoned Megan and married with Stella.Many people read this story may be attracted by it’s title ‘the apple tree’, and in the story there are many scenes a bout the apple tree. Someone may remind the tragedy of the biblical tree in the Garden of Eden whose forbidden fruit was tasted by Adam and Eve. This is a kind of rhetoric called allusion. Above all, the famous sentence ‘the apple tree, the singing, and the gold’ written at the beginning and the end of the story is a allusion from ‘Hippolytas of Euripides’, indicates that Ashurst to Megan just like Love to Hippolytas, their loving story is just a joke with no result.As far as I can concern, I like the ending of the story most. At last, Ashurst put his lips to his wife’s forehead on their silver-wedding day, everything composed the romantic scene. Love is the world’s most rosy things. Ashurst had betrayed someone twenty-six years ago. But let bygones be bygones，he should cherish what he has now, the last scene gives people hope…。