Literary Analysis: “Once More to the Lake” and “Forgetfulness” Time is everything. When you waste time on something you forget about the other important aspects in life. When you spend little time on something you tend to forget what you just heard in a short frame of time. The story “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White and the poem “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins both use syntax and diction to develop their common theme of Annihilated Time. Syntax is the way a sentence is structured and what is in it. Diction is your choice of words and how they relate to the text. First and foremost, in both texts, the authors use many commas as punctuation. One example of this in “Forgetfulness” is “As if, one by one, the memories you used to to …show more content…
In “Forgetfulness” it states “Long ago you kissed the name of the nine muses goodbye.”(3rd stanza, Forgetfulness). This infers that the person reciting the poem is older because he says “long ago”, that could mean that that line occurred 40 or 50 years ago. It proves that he is older. When you age or get older you tend to forget things more frequently than you did in the past. Since you’re forgetting you try and remember everything but you just forget while thinking hard about something. That’s just life, some may always have a strong memory while others, like the person in “Forgetfulness” will forget more than they could remember. Next, in “Once More to the Lake” E.B., White uses many descriptive and hard words. Also, his choice of words goes very well with the theme. “I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn’t know which rod I was at the end of.” (5th Paragraph, Once More to the Lake) The wording in these sentences help contribute to the theme of Annihilating Time a lot. He says he felt “dizzy” and “didn’t know which end of the rod I was on”. The man is thinking a lot about his son. He stares at him forgetting what is going on with everything else. Once he was done looking at his son he felt dizzy and forgot everything that
King Solomon wrote wisely, and later was wisely paraphrased by the folk band “The Byrds”, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven...” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,8). Seasons often represent the periods of a person’s life; birth, youth, age and death. In the short story “Summer” by David Updike, the lake provides an eternal and unchanging witness to Homer’s transition from season to season and from boy to man.
Imagery uses five senses such as visual, sound, olfactory, taste and tactile to create a sense of picture in the readers’ mind. In this poem, the speaker uses visual imagination when he wrote, “I took my time in old darkness,” making the reader visualize the past memory of the speaker in “old darkness.” The speaker tries to show the time period he chose to write the poem. The speaker is trying to illustrate one of the imagery tools, which can be used to write a poem and tries to suggest one time period which can be used to write a poem. Imagery becomes important for the reader to imagine the same picture the speaker is trying to convey. Imagery should be speculated too when writing a poem to express the big
Drifters by Bruce Dawe This poem is about a family that’s always on the move, with no place to settle down for long, hence the poem was titled ‘Drifters’ to describe this family. ‘Drifters’ looks at the members of this family response to frequently change and how it has affected them. This poem is told in third person narration in a conversational tone. This gives the feeling as if someone who knows this family is telling the responder the situation of this family.
Written as part of a short story collection, author T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” presents itself as a climactic account of one night in a less than savory young man’s life. Upon closer inspection “Greasy Lake” reveals a complex series of foreboding events that incorporate the innocence and ignorance males have when presented with different social scenarios and the female gender. Through his masterful use of the protagonists internal dialogue, Boyle’s artistry shows an evolving dynamic of indifference, aggression, and intimidation towards and by the women of “Greasy Lake”.
Bayou Farewell is an eye-opening book that spells out the trouble of the eroding wetlands of South Louisiana. Many Americans have no idea what is happening to the wetlands of Louisiana so this book teaches everything about it. I felt like this was a very educational and emotional book but it showed just how people are being affected by this horrific problem. Mike Tidwell did an amazing job writing this book; I learned so much from it.
Initially, Elisabeth is the matriarch of the four generations of women talked about in the story. Elisabeth works in the house, but she’s married to a field slave and has three daughters. Not much insight is given on Elisabeth and her feelings, yet through the narration it is as if she lived vicariously through her youngest daughter, Suzette: “It was as if her mother were the one who had just had her first communion not Suzette” (20) Even though Elisabeth too worked in the house, Suzette had more privileges than her mother and the other slaves. Elisabeth represented the strength and the pride of her people: “You have a mother and a father both, and they don’t live up to the [plantation] house” (25). She would constantly remind Suzette of her real family, which signifies the remembrance of a history of people and their roots. It is up to Suzette to keep the heritage even through the latter miscegenation of the generations to come.
Within the essay “Once More to the Lake”, E.B. notes that “I bought myself a couple of bass hooks… returned to the lake… to revisit old haunts… When the others went swimming my son said he was going in… As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin left the chill of death (White 464). The essay “Once More to the Lake” brings a significant amount of attention towards the author’s attempt to secure personal satisfaction. It becomes quite obvious in the first few paragraphs, that the main character is on this vacation with his son, to recreate the careless feeling he use to have while vacationing with his dad as a child. Even though E.B. does not come out clearly and say it, the author is chasing some type of nostalgic feeling he clearly needs to feel better about life. On each page, White uses comparison and contrast to explain to the reader how the trip resembles the one he use to experience with his dad. By the end of the reading, the father begins to realize his vacation trip with his son will never be the same as the one he has dreamt about. He is no longer a child who can only notice the positive components of life. At this point, the father is an adult who will never have the innocence he once clung too. It takes some reflection for him to finally realize his place as a father in the situation. Comparison and contrast displays the idea that even though everything may look the same, it does not mean it feels the same. This mode rhetoric reflects back to the theme at the end of essay, as it concludes the author’s failed attempt to find some satisfaction from the
“Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyles tells a story about a group of young adults looking for their chance to be proclaimed “tough guys”. The young adults get their mom’s car and decide to go out to the place called “Greasy Lake”. The lake that use to be a clean lake, was now a hangout place for young adults. The boys had some liquor, pot, and a mission to complete. They were destined to be them crazy “bad guys”. Needless to say their night ends up being a learning experience and the come home different people. Most young adults have to learn some lessons the hard way. Almost, all situations in life are learned by someone’s trial and error. The “Greasy Lake” is a story whose symbols support the main theme: the lake itself represents the boy’s character, losing the keys represent them losing their innocence, and Al’s body represented the results of being “bad guys”.
The first encounter with Helga Crane, Nella Larsen’s protagonist in the novel Quicksand, introduces the heroine unwinding after a day of work in a dimly lit room. She is alone. And while no one else is present in the room, Helga is accompanied by her own thoughts, feelings, and her worrisome perceptions of the world around her. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that most of Helga’s concerns revolve around two issues- race and sex. Even though there are many human character antagonists that play a significant role in the novel and in the story of Helga Crane, such as her friends, coworkers, relatives, and ultimately even her own children, her race and her sexuality become Helga’s biggest challenges. These two taxing antagonists appear throughout the novel in many subtle forms. It becomes obvious that racial confusion and sexual repression are a substantial source of Helga’s apprehensions and eventually lead to her tragic demise.
The book “A Long Way From Chicago” is an adventurous and funny story. The story takes place at Joey Dowdel’s Grandmothers farm house in the country. Joey and his sister Mary Alice were sent to their Grandma’s house during the summer because their parents had to go to Canada for their work. At first, Joey felt uncomfortable with his Grandmother because he had never met her before but eventually he got to know her and they became close friends.
The book Lives on the Boundary, written by Mike Rose, provides great insight to what the new teaching professional may anticipate in the classroom. This book may be used to inform a teacher’s philosophy and may render the teacher more effective. Lives on the Boundary is a first person account composed of eight chapters each of which treat a different obstacle faced by Mike Rose in his years as a student and as an educator. More specifically in chapters one through five Mike Rose focuses on his own personal struggles and achievements as a student. Ultimately the aim is to highlight the underpreparedness of some of today’s learners.
I read the book Lonesome Howl, which is a drama book and a love story. The book was about two main character whose names are Jake and Lucy. They lived with their family in two different farms, but in the same community besides a mountain covered in a big wicked forest where many rumors took place. The farmers around the place lost many sheep’s since a feral beast. It was a quite small community and a lot of tales was told about it to make it even more interesting. Lucy was 16 years old and lived with her strict father and a coward of mom who didn’t dare to stand up for her daughter when she were being mistreated and slapped around by her father. Lucy was a retired and quite teenager because of that. She had a younger brother whose name was Peter. Peter was being bullied in school and couldn’t read since the education of Peter was different compare too Lucy’s. She helped him in school and stood up for the mean bullies, although all she got in return was him talking bullshit about her with their cruel dad which resulted with her getting thrash.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
In Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King, King intertwines stories to create a satire that pokes fun at Indian culture compared to European culture. The book attempts to also poke fun at Judeo-Cristian beliefs by examining the creation story. King makes fun of the story of Adam and Eve. He pokes fun at western civilization and government. Although the book made me laugh some of the meanings behind kings writing puzzled me and made me question king's motives. The book is truly a puzzle that can be hard to decipher for most. I found the book to be challenging but entertaining and interesting.
In “Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White expresses a sense of wonder when he revisits a place that has significant memories. Upon revisiting the lake he once knew so well, White realizes that even though things in his life have changed, namely he is now the father returning with his son, the lake still remains the same. Physically being back at the lake, White faces an internal process of comparing his memory of the lake as a child, to his experience with his son. Throughout this reflection, White efficiently uses imagery, repetition, and tone to enhance his essay.