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Compare And Contrast Once More To The Lake And Those Winter Sundays

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Family More Than Just Blood

People often assume that the definition of family is people who are bound by blood. However, people may consider someone of no relation to be family because of other factors that do not pertain to family trees. E.B. White’s short story “Once More to the Lake”, Gary Soto’s short story “One Last Time”, and Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”, shows that family is not bound by blood but by shared memories, passed knowledge, and love.

Memories are one of the most important aspects of a family. White and his family were raised on knowledge and memories passed on from generation to generation, a spread of love, joy, and knowledge. A memory may be formed and remade on experiences. For instance in the personal narrative “Once More To The Lake” by …show more content…

White, he writes about a place his father took him to when he was just a boy and the memories that they created there. White recollects these memories and adds to them when he brings his son to the exact same place he visited as a child. Growing up it was one of White’s favorite places to visit. White recalls the times he and his dad would wake up early in the mornings to get to the day. With that feeling, White envisions himself as his father and his son as himself. White wrote, “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I and therefore by simple transposition I was my father.”(19). This brings a calming sense to the memory, being able to feel as his own father did on those summer days. As White expresses his memories about the trip a sort of “sensation” if you will washed over him.“I would be in a simple act, I would be picking up a bait box or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something, and suddenly it would be not me but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture. It gave me a

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