Minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, an individual’s life never halts. However, traditions as well as the memories of an individual never diminish. In Elwyn Brooks White’s “Once More to the Lake,” his motif of the journey through life is decrypted, as he recounts a vacation spot. Throughout the essay, he reminisces stories from his childhood, which took place at the lake in Maine. He illustrates life passing through the use of traditions and childhood memories, which last forever. E.B. White, who is a well-known writer that writes both books and articles, begins his work by introducing the vacation spot his father took him to while he was a child. After he recalls activities done with his father, White revealed he visited that lake in Maine for every following summer. He, then, writes about how one memory can lead to a chain of memories that may have not been recollected individually. Thereafter, White and his son pay a visit to the lake every summer, preforming the same activities done by White and his father. He recollects various details, while also having flashbacks of certain episodes. He closes his piece by describing a storm and a realization (169-174). …show more content…
Ranging from Christmas to Easter, traditions are prominent in most families today and never seem to fade away. In this instance, White’s tradition is visiting the lake in August for a month, even though his life is passing. He writes about his tradition through various anecdotes. For example, White’s initial introduction to the tradition begins when he states, “One summer [,] my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine” (670). Following the introduction, he illuminates, “I took along my son [,] on a journey over to the lake,” (670). By merely writing two lines, his tradition becomes evident. Regardless of the fact that his journey is continuing, he still maintains this tradition with his
In the essay “Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White, uses diction and syntax to reveal the main character’s attitude towards the lake in Maine. He has an uncertain attitude towards the lake throughout the essay because he is unsure of who he is between him and his son. On the ride there White, pondering, remembering old memories, keeps wondering if the lake is going to be the same warm place as it was when he was a kid. The lake is not just an ordinary lake to White, it’s a holy spot, a spot where he grew up every summer. “I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot-the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps” (29). White’s diction and syntax
Throughout T. C. Boyle’s work, “Greasy Lake”, a young man’s intrepid night leads him to discover how close death is to life. This realization causes a sombre awakening for the narrator as he falls in the midst of fatality; and practically becomes a casualty himself. Following each traumatic event, the narrator’s innocence disappears and morality is called into question. When death fast approaches, and the grim reaper is breathing down his neck, the narrator subsequently realizes his mistakes, but not before it’s almost too late.
When the narrator sees the image of the man and the woman at the beach, looking “through the triangle formed by the woman’s tanned knee, calf, and thigh,” she “saw the calm, sleeping waters of the ocean. My mother was out there somewhere. My father had said so” (le 6). Here, the power of the water is highlighted as this occurrence shows the significance of the ocean as both a connection between the Vietnamese refugees and their homeland, as well as a subjective construction of families and family experiences. It is in the water that families are created by experiences, not by blood. _____ Brogan argues “families do not simply tell stories; stories create families” (18). The four uncles became family due to sharing the “boat people” experience. The water in this instance represents family and starting a new life in America. The image is also seen as indicative of the pejorative aspects of water – the ocean separates these refugees from the narrator’s mother and their homeland. The ocean separates the refugees from the narrator’s mother and their homeland, but also creates a sense of unity among the
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
I would have to choose the essay of Once More to the lake by E.B. White. The essay engages readers in a relatable story that is easy to comprehend and read. Many of us can relate to a summer fishing trip with our fathers or even family and this essay encaptures that very essence. “I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot-the caves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind.” The author goes to explain the wondrous beauty of the lake and its surrounding areas engaging the reader visually. The thesis of Once More to the lake is also much more simplistic and easier to understand. In the first paragraph we know and can understand that this essay is going to be about the reliving of past memories returning to a
---. “Take Me to the Water.” 1960. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998: 353-403.
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
While at rock bottom of one’s life, each protagonist maintains sense of security by remembering his past. In Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday reclaims his past by remembering the time he spends with his grandmother. Through his grandmother’s death Momaday recollects her: “standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and afterwards when her vision failed . . . when the weight of the age came upon her; praying. I remember her most often at prayer” (2507). He strongly desires to be at her grave and yearns for belonging through visiting her spiritually. Momaday looks at her grave with despair instead of embracing all the life that she gave him. By Momaday reminiscing about his grandma, he loses hope and bec...
In their essays, “The Little Store” and “Once More to the Lake”, Eudora Welty and E. B. White reveal how certain people and places leave an indelible mark on their persons during childhood. The lake and the store are different in terms of place, time, and people; however, they are the same in terms of indelibility.
In “Once More to the Lake” emerged the Ideological content when the author says that his son does things in the same way he did when he went to the lake. In “Confluences” emerged the ideological content as well; it is about the last moments of the author’s uncle with her father. In addition, all of these essays present some Philosophical content. All of them requires a deep understanding of things ( Sowers and reapers) and life (confluences and Once More to the Lake). All of these essays ask for a search of the essence, not just the obvious but the abstract
---. “Take Me to the Water.” 1972. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998: 353-403.
One of the most accepted universal truths in the world is that everyone will eventually die. This truth is often written about in literature; E.B. White incorporates this truth in his essay “Once More to the Lake” as he describes a trip that he takes to a lake with his son during summertime. White begins his essay describing his experience as a boy at a lake in Maine and describes various memories of his time there. He then goes on to tell of his most recent trip to the lake, now as a father who has grown many years, and the similarities of his present trip with those of when he was a young boy. Only to be reminded that these memories foreshadow through the passing of time that he will one day cease to live, and that die is much closer now than when he originally visited the same lake. In the essay, White
E. B. White's story "Once More to the Lake" is about a man who revisits a lake from his childhood to discover that his life has lost placidity. The man remembers his childhood as he remembers the lake; peaceful and still. Spending time at the lake as an adult has made the man realize that his life has become unsettling and restless, like the tides of the ocean. Having brought his son to this place of the past with him, the man makes inevitable comparisons between his own son and his childhood self, and between himself as an adult and the way he remembers his father from his childhood perspective. The man's experience at the lake with his son is the moment he discovers his own mortality.
The poems facilitate the investigation of human experience through illustrating life’s transience and the longevity of memory.
I think of the mountain called ‘White Rocks Lie Above In a Compact Cluster’ as it were my own grandmother. I recall stories of how it once was at that mountain. The stories told to me were like arrows. Elsewhere, hearing that mountains name, I see it. Its name is like a picture. Stories go to work on you like arrows. Stories make you live right. Stories make you replace yourself. (38)