Past And Present Experience In Eb White's Once More To The Lake

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“Once more to the Lake” is a short essay written by E.B. White in first-person. White tries to form a relationship between his past and present experiences. It begins with a father and son who travel to a place White’s family visited every August, a great lake for camping and fishing. E.B. White is full of excitement as the lake symbolizes his childhood and the best memories in his life. Going fishing again on this lake, he wants to return his childhood or to return his childhood memories. He later realizes that he is not able to return to his childhood and that he’s getting older and he is not capable of remember all the memories brought from the lake. White says, “I wondered how time would have married this unique, this holy spot—the coves …show more content…

Although, we know everything changes as time goes on. During his childhood years the lake was quiet, with little nature and a lack of main roads. “The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming although the shores of the lake were quite heavily wooded.” (pg. 1-2) This shows that the way he remembers the lake it is similar to the way he sees the lake now and he is accepting that he is no longer a teen and no longer the son, but now the father with …show more content…

The way he feels is common for people who have visited places that are connected to great memories. When White mentions that even the storms have not changed, “It was the revival of an old melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish awe.” To him when the rain the thunder and lightning disappear the sky becomes more clear and his vision of the lake begins to change. He then realizes that time is moving forward by the annoying sound of the boat motors he hasn’t heard before. However, some things don’t change but only the position it plays in the generation. The past is something that we cannot remove. All senses smell, sight, hearing, taste, touch, can mentally bring back a thousand memories. White says, “Outside, the road was tarred and cars stood in front of the store. Instead, all was just as it had always been.” He tries to explain that outside, we can see everything has changed, but on the inside everything that we have experienced before stays the

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