Street Scenes By E. B White And Hood Analysis

Gloria Sabri

James Billings

English-101W

21 October, 2016

Each culture has its own way of living based upon the expectations of family living. Within those expectations, there is a dominant gender role that comes into play. In the essay “Once More to the Lake,” White lives a traditional life, where men play the more dominant role. In the essay “Street Scenes”, Hood brings the reader back to her home town through vivid memories of her modernized life, where she and her mother play the female dominant role in society. E.B White and Hood represent entirely different gender roles that are acquired in society within contrasting generations, containing similar values.

Throughout the essay, White reminisces his past experience at the lake where he recalls what it felt like to think about girls and how quiet the steamboat ran on the still water while boys would play mandolins and girls would sing (White). These memories allow White to compare his past with the way things are in the present. He realizes that things are slightly more advanced, such as the loudness of the new motorboats. While White notices the slight changes in the environment, he encounters a dual existence where it

It leaves the reader wondering about the life cycle the same way he worries about his. Am I going to die soon? Have I lost track of time and the people around me? Whites last statement leaves behind a trail of questions because that is what he endures throughout his life.

In the essay “Street Scenes”, Hood reminisces her past and family life through vivid memories of her hometown. Unlike White, her memories consist of places along a road in which she travels time after time. Both her route and White’s memory of the lake provide a familiar sense of the past. Both of these places are symbolic in recalling the memories the past. Similarly, Hood finds herself driving on a road that links together her past present and