A for Apple: A Story

A for Apple

Why the child did not choose orange, mango or something else instead of apple? Though, there are a lot of fruits even he has seen the plants of these fruits.

“A P P L E!” My three years old nephew uttered in alphabet as a response against my question “What’s your favorite fruit?” Though, it is an obvious question/answer with a child of play-ground; it dragged me in to the mystery as well as made me pondering around the object apple.

While he turns the page his eyes glance at the picture of apple at first. Thus, the alphabet ‘a’ as well as the word ‘apple’ is the very beginning term learned by my nephew as other children do in school. The apple for him was the beginning term as we had done in our beginning in school from generation to generation.

Does the apple have special qualities which are not beard by other fruits? No! Not. All the fruits have their special and unique qualities with individual and different characteristics. Thus, I reached on conclusion that it is not the special quality of apple that made the child picked it. Rather it is the course book of the child which has mentioned apple in the starting page as “A for apple” with fascinating picture of ripe and red apple.

Again, I am not satisfied with the monopoly of the term apple because there are other immense of words which begin from the alphabet ‘A’ even though, why the apple is selected. The historical evidence of modern physics as well as the western mythology answered me very well that why the apple is selected as the beginning term. The historical evidence of modern science as well as the western mythologies has well justified the quality of apple to be the beginning of knowledge, learning and truth.

Apple has a significance contribution on modern physics. As mentioned in Newton’s biography, once he was wandering in garden, an apple falls from the tree. It made him pondering upon the incident that why the apple did not go above to the sky, rather fell down. It gave the knowledge of gravity in Newton’s mind.

Fruits fall down from sky; it is the natural process. But, it is the apple that gave the concept of gravity as well as birth of modern physics since Sir Isaac Newton is called the Father of Modern Physics. Now, the science has reached very further in this phase of modern scientific invention and development. That it can be claimed that apple is the roots of this modern scientific age.

Before science, there was the domination of mythologies since the human civilization. Even the mythology has well mentioned about the role of apple in the course of wisdom, knowledge, truth and beauty. Taking the references from genesis, let’s go to the first human begins Adam and Eve. God created Adam as a gardener of Eden garden. There were different kinds of fruits in the garden with different significance. 

Among them God had forbidden Adam to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge. Later, God created Eve from the left rams of Adam. Later, both Adam and Eve tasted the apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge. And, for the first time the human race able to gain the knowledge, wisdom and rational faculty of the mind. Though, they are banished from heaven to this world they able to bring the knowledge through the apple they have tasted in heaven. As the result, the human civilization has reached peak using the same rational faculty of mind. The source of this was the apple, not other fruits. Thus, the term apple itself refers to the knowledge or wisdom.

Similarly, different mythologies have mentioned the role or significance of apple for various incidents and events. In most of the great incident the apple is taken as the major cause or source. According to the Greek mythology, a golden apple of Hera’s garden caused the Trojan War, one of the key events of Greek myths. Eris, the goddess of discord, was angry not to be included among the gods asked to attend a wedding feast. Arriving uninvited, she threw one of the apples, labeled ‘For the Fairest,’ onto a table at the feast. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each assumed that the apple was meant for her. God Zeus asked Paris, a prince of Troy, to settle the matter, and he awarded the apple to Aphrodite being persuaded to gain the most beautiful woman of the world. In revenge, both of them supported the Greeks in the war that led to the fall of Troy. People still use the phrase "apple of discord" to refer to something that provokes an argument. Here too the apple functions central role for the Trojan War.

Again the Greek Mythology mentions the significance of the apple from the garden of Hesperides. Inclined by the Hesperides, the Daughters of Evening, and secured by a fierce dragon, these trees grew in a garden somewhere far in the west. The features of those apples were golden, tasted like honey, and had magical powers. They could heal, they renewed themselves as they were eaten and if thrown, and they always hit their target and then returned to the thrower's hand. The mightiest of the mortal as well as the son of god Zeus and a mortal woman, Hercules is instructed to capture these apple and bring to Athena(The Goddess or wife of Zeus as well as the step mother of Hercules) as his eleventh great labor.

For the eleventh of his 12 great labors, the hero Hercules had to obtain some of these apples. After a long, difficult journey across North Africa, he enlisted the help of the giant Atlas, who entered the garden, strangled the dragon, and obtained the fruit. Hercules took the apples to Greece. Later, Athena returned them to the Hesperides. Anyway, after capturing the apple Hercules achieved the immortality as well as his position with other heavenly Gods and goddesses. Thus, here the apples contain the quality of achievement, transformation and immortality.

In Norse (North Germanic People) mythos, apples are a symbol of eternal youth. Legend says that the goddess Idun guarded the magical golden apples that kept the gods young. But after the trickster god Loki allowed Idun to be carried off to the realm of the giants, the gods began to grow old and gray. They forced Loki to recapture Idun from the giants. According to Celtic mythology also apples as the fruit of the gods and of immortality.

Thus, apples are brimming with symbolic meanings and mythic associations. In China apple blossoms are a symbol of women's beauty and they also represent peace. They can signify wisdom, joy, fertility, and youthfulness in other tradition.

Taking all these historical and mythological evidences in consideration, it can be claimed that apple is the symbol of knowledge, truth, youth, beauty etc. Similarly, the apple beginning, from where the knowledge had burn in human civilization. That is why; it is quite reasonable and logical to begin the learning of a child with the remark that “A for Apple.”

I wish, like Steve Jove’s’ ‘apple’ our Jumli and Mustange apples could get the market some day; it would change our nation’s economy being ‘apple’ as a symbol of economical prosperity too.

Thank You For Reading!