How Does White Describe The Lake

In E.B. White’s essay “Once More to the Lake,” he describes spending time with his son at a lake in Maine that he visited as a child. One month every summer he would vacation at this lake with his father. White had dreamt about bringing his son to the lake one day. Upon White’s return to this fabled lake, he realizes it’s not the same lake he visited as a child. He finds that the modern world has made its mark on the lake. To White, what developers in the area call progress he sees as destructive and has impacted the lake negatively. White’s use of figurative language allows him to show to the reader what he felt and how he viewed the changes sprouting up around him. To some, change is viewed as progress while to others it can be devastating and destructive.

Many people, after reading “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf or “Once More to the Lake,” would get the general idea that both essays are about death. However, it is apparent to me that both works are really an illustration of the significance of life, but each essay accomplishes this in a different way. I aim to show how these two essays are alike by comparing their similar theme of “carpe diem” as well as some stylistic choices.

When the father finally goes back to the camp, he remembers fond memories of the lake. He calls the lake “this holy spot--the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps.” He calls it a “holy spot” because this is a special childhood

The lake itself plays a major role throughout the story, as it mirrors the characters almost exactly. For example, the lake is described as being “fetid and

Greasy Lake is described by the narrator in a deliberately appalling to the average reader. However, the narrator and his friends see the lake as the most favorable location to spend their days and late nights. The lake itself is described as “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.” (130) However, as the

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”

This line is the epitome of remembrance. We all look back on our childhood and reminisce on the joyful moments in our life. We cling on to the details, remembering what the scene smelled, tasted, and looked like. This is exactly what E.B White is portraying in his passage “Once More to the Lake.” This line is a

He is forced to conceal himself in the dark waters next to a dead body while witnessing others vandalize and destroy his car from a distance. “There was a smell in the air, raw and sweet at the same time, the smell of the sun firing buds and opening blossoms. I contemplated the car. It lay there like a wreck along the highway, like a steel sculpture left over from a vanished civilization. Everything was still. This was nature.” These words are how he observes the nature surrounding him after the events take place. Where only a short time ago everything about Greasy Lake was full of life and promise it is now dead and still. He no longer sees nature the same way, or looks at the world as he once did. He beholds the world in a different manner, he will never view life in the way he used to. Everything has changed for him.

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.

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).

It was at one time, but not when the speaker and his friends were at it. “The Indians had called it Wakan, a reference to the clarity of its waters. Not it was fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” (1). In a way, the lake represents the speaker. At one time (before the night he spent at greasy lake), he was like the lake. He was free of litter and garbage. He was clear and pure. After the night at the lake, the speaker was changed. He experienced what fear really was. He also learned what “being bad” was all about. He let go of his innocence. His childhood was over after the night at the lake. He was a man. He was a man who committed a

The lake in the novel, In the Lake of the Woods, symbolizes the concealed secrets of John’s past. Lakes are very mysterious things; the surface of the lake can be seen for miles, however, underneath the surface there is so much uncharted area that a person is unable to see. The deeper you travel into the depths of the lake, the darker it gets, fore the light of the sun doesn’t reach these areas. These characteristics of the lake exemplify secrets a person, especially those of John. The deep depths of the lake are the dark secrets John tries so hard to conceal and the light illuminating the shallow parts of the water is the part of himself he allows people to see.

One Pager: Once More to the Lake In the essay, “Once More to the Lake,” author E.B White writes about a tradition that his father started in the summer of 1904, where his father would take White and the rest of his family to a lake in Maine for the whole month of August. I loved the beginning, and how White started with giving a vivid reflection of his childhood, then gradually progressing to his present. In detail, he wrote about his childhood and how he was always the first one to wake up to the motionless lake. That was the summer he always knew.

An essay that contained unique writing style was “Once more to the lake” by E.B White. White explores the old- age relationship between a father and son. This essay indeed has themes and details beneath the text. The author reflects on his childhood with him own father at the Lake he is visiting with his son. Throughout the essay, White describes the parallels he experiences while spending time with his son.