E.B. White’s personal essay, “Once More to the lake” reflects on White’s past, future, and present. Throughout the essay, White reminisces over the times he has had at the lake with his father, and now with his son. White begins to state a dual existence of sorts seeing himself as his both his father and his son. White switches back and forth between the two, till he realizes that his life has become what any others has. He will die like any other soul, like his father. White is clear after he sees that his son is growing that death is inevitable. First reading the essay, I found it quite confusing and weird. I could not relate to the story being I am only eighteen; however, I do realize death is inevitable. After skimming back over the reading
In the beginning we find the family and its surrogate son, Homer, enjoying the fruits of the summer. Homer wakes to find Mrs. Thyme sitting alone, “looking out across the flat blue stillness of the lake”(48). This gives us a sense of the calm, eternal feeling the lake presents and of Mrs. Thyme’s appreciation of it. Later, Fred and Homer wildly drive the motor boat around the lake, exerting their boyish enthusiasm. The lake is unaffected by the raucous fun and Homer is pleased to return to shore and his thoughts of Sandra. Our protagonist observes the object of his affection, as she interacts with the lake, lazily resting in the sun. The lake provides the constant, that which has always been and will always be. As in summers past, the preacher gives his annual sermon about the end of summer and a prayer that they shall all meet again. Afterward, Homer and Fred take a final turn around the lake only to see a girl who reminds Homer of Sandra. “And there was something in the way that she raised her arm which, when added to the distant impression of her fullness, beauty, youth, filled him with longing as their boat moved inexorably past…and she disappeared behind a crop of trees.
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
Authors often use details that evoke a response in readers to produce an effective description. Their aim is not simply to tell readers what something looks like but to show them. Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Grave” and E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake” are essays that use subjective language to illustrate the principles of effective description. Porter’s “The Grave” describes a childish afternoon of rabbit hunting that brings death close enough to be seen and understood, while White’s “Once More tot he Lake” is a classic essay of persona; reminiscence in which he recreates the lakeside camp he visited with his son.
E.B. White's way of letting the reader know that the father is in a way depressed, is through great detail and description. The story mentions how the lake has changes since the father had seen it last. How the once gravel roads have been paved over, and the sail boats are now replaced with boats with outboard motors. As the reader, one can sense a...
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
Even in the first two lines he comments, “a quick blur of curved silver darting away, having nothing to do with your life or your death” (23-24). In these two lines, he dramatizes how irrelevant a life seems after one dies as he compares a micro piece of silver bolting away, not even clearly, but blurrily. Then he proceeds to add a transcendentalist idea with the line “the tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all … sink towards the … bottom” (25-26), noting that the person becomes one with nature after having a quick death. Soon after the lake takes the person into its waters, the person leaves “behind what [they] have already forgotten, the surface…” (27), which implies that once the person is dead, life will not be remembered and all that will be left is the hollow corpse. The last bit of “now overrun with the high travels of clouds” (27-28), makes death seem like flesh-to-earth decay, instead of taking into account an afterlife of some kind. After the person drowns, the lake restores its natural, tranquil state, as if nothing happened and the death of a person had no more significance than the death of a feral
After a few moments, he settles and reflects, “I thought about him, fog on the lake, insects chirring eerily, and felt the tug of fear, felt the darkness opening up inside me like a set of jaws. Who was he, I wondered, this victim of time and circumstance bobbing sorrowfully in the lake at my back” (193). The narrator can almost envision himself as the man whose corpse is before him. Both deceased from mysterious causes, involved in shady activities, and left to rot in the stagnant lake water, and never to be discovered by the outside world. This marks the point where the main character is the closest he has ever been to death.
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.
People often have nicknames to describe details about themselves. Nicknames are not self-created but given to the person from friends or even comrades. In “Into The Lake Of The Woods” By Tim O' Brian, this is the case with John Wade, a former soldier that was nicknamed “Sorcerer”. John Wade is named Sorcerer because of use of magic in his youth and how the men is his squad would feel protected because of his magical powers. As Sorcerer is Wade's alter ego, it seems that it goes on to cost him dearly later in his life. Wade eventually ends up becoming governor of Minnesota and tries to run for U.S Senate. He loses in a landslide victory to his opponent as evidence of the My Lai incident is uncovered. His actions as Sorcerer start to make his life for the worse. It is seen later that Wade's wife, Kathy, is missing and Wade is soon suspected as he remains calm and not involved in the search party. O’Brien does not make it clear on how it Kathy's disappearance occurs but it is clear what happens. Sorcerer arrives again in John Wade as he pulls one final magic trick: to make Kathy disappear....forever.
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.
---. “Take Me to the Water.” 1972. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998: 353-403.
He begins by looking at the very common views of death that are held by most people in the world, and tells us that he will talk of death as the "unequivocal and permanent end to our existence" and look directly at the nature of death itself (1). The first view that
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.
It is relatively easy to see the repression of blacks by whites in the way in which the little black boy speaks and conveys his thoughts. These racial thoughts almost immediately begin the poem, with the little black boy expressing that he is black as if bereaved of light, and the little English child is as white as an angel. The wonderful part of these verses is the fact that the little black boy knows that his soul is white, illustrating that he knows about God and His love.