“Once More to the Lake” by E. B. White describes the author's memories and experiences from visiting a lake. In the beginning, the author describes his memories of a lake that he had visited as a child. He was very descriptive, including many details about his time at the lake. He wrote about going back to the lake with his son after many years of living by the sea.
The author reminisces about his time at the lake with his family as a child and pictures the many things that may have changed over the years. White describes his emotions through many different senses, proving just how much he had enjoyed his previous trips. He then reaches the point of arrival and compares all of the changes previously mentioned. He does this by believing he
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He describes certain memories of fishing on a boat where nothing has changed from when he was young. Claiming that he was in the same boat with the same fishing rods and dragonflies, White has convinced himself that no time has passed since he was a kid.
After bringing himself back into the present, White shares how he and his son caught two fish and brought them back. Once they were finished with lunch, they went swimming in the lake, and White noted the differences between the lake and the sea which he lives by. He did this by mentioning how the shore was where he left it; not receding like the ocean. Once again, White thinks back to his previous visits, stating that nothing has changed. From the swimmers to the minnows, everything was the same.
The one difference that disturbed the author was the motor boats. When he was young, there were quiet motor boats that hummed and purred along the lake. On his more recent visit, there were more modern boats, which were far noisier than what he remembered. During his trip, there was a thunderstorm. White wrote about the feelings that the campers would experience before and during the storm, and how they would all celebrate by swimming in the rain once it was over. To wrap things up, White wrote about his son putting on cold swimming trunks, and how he could almost share the
The two boys go fishing, carrying White back to his childhood somehow in a form of déjà vu. Memories flooding his mind, the author speaks about how holding certain times and experiences in his life shaped who he was. Life at the lake was so different from the “real world.” The American scene had not changed as the author describes it. Just like earlier in the piece, he mentions how peaceful and “enchanted” the lake was, seeming as though you could escape for a few hours and upon your return see that nothing had changed.
In the Lake of the Woods Analysis In chapter one of the poem, Tim O’Brien begins by introducing two unnamed characters who, indeed after the aftermath of a primary election, the audience learn that they decide to rent a cottage in what the author refers to as Lake of the Woods. The area surrounding the cottage has no people or towns. However, the same cottage has a beautiful view in terms of a lake facing to the north of Canada. The two unnamed characters came to the place in sought of solitude and togetherness. From this perspective, O’Brien develops his fiction story from a point of uncertainty.
Cool, calm crashing waves along the coast of the Great Lakes is an timeless picture many generations have enjoyed. The Great Lakes have the same beautiful views as it does in years past. However, the inside of the lakes have completely changed. It’s no longer the same lake your grandfather knows nor will it be the same lake for your grandchildren.
White’s effectively uses language in his writing to help illustrate a blending of time. In the beginning of the paragraph, White states that he “ saw the dragonfly alight on the tip of [his] rod.” The dragonfly is very important to White because it “convinced [him] beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been.” White believes that nothing about the lake’s setting has
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien explores the human mind and the psychological mechanisms that people use to protect themselves from the truth. The novel follows John Wade, a politician who just lost a race for senator because the truth came out that he was involved in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war. Wade and his wife then go on vacation on the great lakes in Minnesota. The story examines Wade’s childhood and his relationship with his wife Kathy. One night Kathy goes missing and a boat is missing.
According to Dennis Vannatta, because of the way the lake is portrayed the narrator and his friends agree that the lake will indeed provide them with
The view from the road of the lake during the afternoon in a quiet town gives the reader a sense of solitariness. The narrator describes that “Norman Bowker followed the tar road on its seven-mile loop around the lake, then he started all over again, driving slowly, feeling safe inside his father's big Chevy, now and then looking out on the lake to watch the boats and water-skiers and scenery” (O’Brien, 137). He feels safe in his car, silently protected from the terrors of the world. At the same time, though, it is beautiful and peaceful as he watches the scenery. Bowker drives for quite a long time.
However within the story the individuals as well as the narrator see the lake as being the best place to spend their time. The story describes the lake as being, “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.”
In the passage “Once More to the Lake,” by E.B. White, White relives his most memorable childhood memories with his son, at the lake he used to visit with his father. In the beginning, White gives his reasons for going to the lake to spend time with his son. Everything at the lake remained the same from the last time White left it, which soon after brings back memories of the time he spent with his father. Throughout the rest of the passage White shows his close observation of why his memories have been triggered and what triggered them. During Whites revisit at the lake White realizes how much his son reminds him of his younger self, and how he now impersonates his father 's
“Across the river, a party of fishermen had been camped for several days. I heard the old Maxwell car as it snorted and chugged its way out of the bottoms. I knew they were leaving. Throwing down my hoe, I ran down to the river and waded across at a place called the Shannon Ford. I hurried to the campground.
This trip changed White’s outlook on life, for he finally realized that mortality was closer than he imagined. He was no longer young, and watching his son mature only made this notion more real. One day, he will be only a memory to his son, just like his father is to him. White uses a variety of rhetorical devices to convey the message to his audience that life moves quickly, not stopping for anything, including emotionally-charged diction, imagery, and personification. White uses emotionally-charged diction as a form of pathos to convey his feelings about his past and explain trouble he is having with accepting his old age.
Here, sitting on this bench, I found ten minutes of paradise. And like Smith says in her essay, I eventually began thinking about what comes next. What other beaches can I find? In my perspective, a beach can only last for a certain duration of time, and once you leave that environment, it will never be the beach that it was before, because ultimately, life is constantly changing.
He reflects back to his past and compares it to the present he is in. During the first morning back at the lake, he “began to sustain the illusion that [his son] was [him], and therefore, by simple transposition, that [he] was [his] father” (White 432). White feels that everything at the lake is the same, but he is playing
Although the old man suffers in pain and exhaustion due to the great size of the fish, the overwhelming sun, and his injured hands, he does not quit but keeps persisting. He does not let go of the fish. He maintained his strong desire to conquer the
Robert Frost is a famous American poet whose poems are known in American colloquial speech. Frost started writing poems in the late eighteenth century into the nineteenth century. In this poem it can be interpreted in many different ways; the cliff and continent being backed together against the destruction of the oncoming waves, could stand for a storm building up cross the ocean. But frost could just be displaying the ongoing destruction of waves to cliffs.