Once More To The Lake Essay

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

The son had loved his father dearly but does not favor his way of life. His interest in school greatly outweighed his interest or desire to work on ‘The Boat’. He still had a love for the sea and in some way felt like he should carry out his family’s tradition. After his uncle had accepted a new job he took his position on the boat and promised his father that we would continue to sail with him for as long as he lived, and when his father passed despite the desires of his mother he followed his dreams and pursued education and all of its wonders. After living his life he finds himself longing for the sea again and isn’t so satisfied with his life.

Nature has a powerful way of portraying good vs. bad, which parallels to the same concept intertwined with human nature. In the story “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle, the author portrays this through the use of a lake by demonstrating its significance and relationship to the characters. At one time, the Greasy Lake was something of beauty and cleanliness, but then came to be the exact opposite. Through his writing, Boyle demonstrates how the setting can be a direct reflection of the characters and the experiences they encounter.

Although ethos and logos are important modes as well, this text is most effective due to White’s continuous use of pathos. His thesis statement suggests the urge to return to his childhood memories, “…this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week’s fishing and to re-visit old haunts” (“Once” para. 1).The audience is also evoked with anticipation to what will happen later. A good example of this is “I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows” (“Once” para. 2). The audience is left asking how the trip with his son will compare to his own memories. White goes on to describe in intricate detail his memory of the lake, cabins, and scenery. He uses visual imagery to allow the audience to place themselves in the setting he has described. “White wants to emphasize the permanence of some things, or at least the memory of some things, despite the continual change that happens in the world”

The author symbolizes the water as transition and spirituality, the lake is symbolized as the elusive badness the boys want so badly. The narrator notices that none of them are as bad as they try to act. After that night the narrator realizes he cannot make it in that life, rather the narrator wants to go to the safety and security of his home and parents.

Imagery, detail, and symbolism play a crucial role in this work. Imagery has the function of painting a picture of the situation in the reader’s mind so that he or she is able to develop a version of the story individually. It makes the reading a more personalized experience that helps the reader to understand what’s going on. When O’Brien was just about to escape to Canada to avoid being drafted, he described the scene that was presented in front of him. “The shoreline was dense with brush and timber. I could see tiny red berries on the bushes.” In this quote, the reader can visualize the setting of the lake where he has to make his life-changing decision. It appeals to the visual sense by describing the shoreline and even the sense of

“Greasy Lake” by T. C. Bolyle narrated from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, told as a reflective account of his youth. In the story, he recounts details of his experiences on a summer evening with two friends. The reader experiences the misadventures of the protagonist that night along as told from the viewpoint of the now mature narrators retrospective. Exposed in the story are two character traits of the protagonist. Those traits are immaturity and rebellion, along with the trait of introspection on the part of the narrator.

This passage is symbolic to the point that it relates to the boys. Life is like the lake as in life can bring clarity and peacefulness or it can be murky and destructive. To the Narrator the Lake is a crucial life changing moment when he realizes that he is just a child and not this bad ass who can take on the world. “I was nineteen, a mere child, an infant, and here in the space of five minutes I’d struck down one greasy character and blundered into the waterlogged carcass of a second” (125).

Isolation, meaning a state of separation, is often misperceived by many as people frequently believe that isolation is always a negative state of being; that isolation due to emotions is non-realistic, and that isolation is always involuntary. These myths are commonly accepted; however, the novel Crow Lake takes a different stand from these myths. Mary Lawson, author of the novel, demonstrated isolations in many of its forms through the protagonist, Kate, and a small, desolated rural community that represented the primary setting of the novel, Crow Lake. By doing so, Lawson reveals the counterfactual nature of these myths and thus correcting the misconceptions that the society has about isolation.

This paper is a critical analysis of two stories, ‘Once more to the lake’ and the ‘The Little Store’. The stories are written by two different authors namely, E.B White and Welty respectively. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and explain the stories and also compare them in order to enhance the value of this paper. The comparison of both the stories will be in the form of analysis in which the similarities and differences will be discussed. More importantly, the paper will be shedding light on the hidden message that the authors give to the readers as an output of these stories and what lessons should a reader must take away after reading these epic stories of the authors’ childhoods.

Imagery is defined as a figurative language that causes people to imagine pictures in their minds. As a writer, if you want the reader to take a journey, down memory lane, then the reader needs to not only see your memory, but touch, taste, hear and smell it as well. In “Once More to the Lake” it is easy to see why E. B. White has such vivid memories pertaining to the lake. Simply put, he enjoyed those summers. Returning to that same place brought back great childhood memories for him; memories and experiences that he will now be able to share with his son. From dragon flies darting two feet away and back again, to schools of minnows swimming by, or the camp grounds being swarmed parents and children people loading and unloading cars during

The story of E. B. White in his work Once More to the Lake, is an essay about how he returns to his beloved lake camp in Maine as an older man with his son. At this lake, he has all of his favorite childhood memories stored and wanted his son to experience the same things he did. Nearly everything was the same, expect one thing. The change in technology was a clear threat to the memory he had of that place. When he was a kid, he remembered how all the boats motors that traveled the lake, “were inboard; and when they were at a little distance, the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep” (White, 462).

In E.B. White’s essay, he starts off with the memory of going to the lake with his father, “One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August.” Just as his father did for him, he writes about bringing his own son to the lake. He is constantly unsure whether it is his son doing certain actions, or if he is remembering these actions from his own childhood. The things his son does are so similar to what he did at the lake as a child they begin to blend together into one experience rather than two. He mirrors this feeling with how he sees the lake, timeless and unchanging.

Childhood is a time for making new discoveries, but it is also a time that can lend itself to tragedy. The short story, the lake by Ray Bradbury creates a sombre tone and first-person point of view not only creates a person, but a vivid picture of childhood in general, how it is often hard and misunderstood. The theme of re-discovery is prominent in the story for Harold as when tally is discovered, Harold remembers everything about his past, although when he goes back to his wife Margret, he does not seem to recognise her, “a strange woman named Margret waiting for me”, which reiterates his love for tally. Although life may fly past quickly, memories can come rushing back till you wish you had your time again, there is no telling what events a child may take with them into adulthood. The symbolism of friendship, “I did. I built the rest of it very slowly”, which shows the bond children have is