Once More To The Lake 赏析

Once More To The Lake By E.B. White

Once More to the Lake by E.B. White Once More to the Lake, by E.B. White was

an essay in which a father struggles to find himself. The essay is about a little

boy

and

his

father.

They

go

to

a

lake

where

the

father

had

been

in

his

childhood years. The father looks back at those years and tries to relive the

moments through his son's eyes. He knows he can't, and has difficulty dealing

with

the

fact

that

he

can't

go

back

in

time.

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 replace with boats with outboard motors. As the reader, one can

sense a feeling of how the father isn't able to adapt to these changes. The little

boy in the story, the son, also doesn't seem to appreciate the lake as much as

the father did when he was growing up. Like how when he was a boy, he would

wake up early to fish. Now the father wishes his son would do the same. It

seemed the little boy just too the trip for granted. He didn't appear to be as

appreciative as the father once was. The father describes the view as pretty

much being the same. How things felt the same, like the moss on his feet and

such. He didn't feel that the lake had changed any, but everything around it did.

This is when the idea of a duel personality comes into picture. The father can

almost see himself as a child, doing the things he wished his son would do.

When he was young he would get up especially early to fix his fishing pole and

even help set the dinner table. Then he realizes that his son doesn't do any of

these things, making the father feel as if the trip just isn't the same. As the

story

progresses,

the

father

begins

to

point

out

the

differences

of

his

once

peaceful

get-a

way.

How

when

arriving

was

something

to

look

forward

to,

seeing all of the other family's greet you, the madness of the train station, and

the smells of the wilderness. All of those things were gone, replace by motor

boats that would wake you up in the middle of a summer slumber. Lastly the

father brings up the thunderstorm. To me this represents the birth of a new

him. I say this because once the rain clears up and the dark skies disappear, he

begins to look at his son, and the entire trip in a different light. He forgets the

years of old, and realizes that he is not his son, he stops trying to live his life

through his son's eyes. When at the end he feel the cold chill of death at his

groin, I feel this is him letting the trip be just a trip, not pushing his son to do

exactly what he once did. He lets the boy do what he wants, not do what the

father had done all those years down by the lake.

Free narrative essay: Once More to the Lake

February 11th, 2010

Once more to the Lake is an essay written by E.B. in which the author tries to

establish the links of his present life with his past experiences when he was a

little boy. The essay starts as a father and son go to the lake, which was a

favorite place for camping and fishing of the father when he was a child. The

father is full of expectations as the lake symbolizes his youth ages and the most

careless period of his life. So the decision to go fishing again on this lake may

be regarded as an attempt to return childhood or at least to return childhood

impressions and memories.

The father is depressed and it’ obvious while reading the beginning where he

describes the lake of his childhood and the same lake during his elder years:

“It

was

like

the

revival

of

an

old

melodrama

that

I

had

seen

long

ago

with

childish awe.”

The main reason for such kind of depression is the fact that he is not able to

return his childhood and the fact that he is getting older as he is not able to

remember all moments of joy on the lake. Another important detail which is

mentioned by the author is that the lake also had changed since the last time

he was there. In childhood years it was nearly a virgin lake, with wildlife and

absence of any kind of good roads to it. Now the lake had changed:

“The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There were cottages

sprinkled around the shores, and it was in farming although the shores of the

lake were quite heavily wooded”

Such attitudes show that the changes which happened to the lake and changes

which affected the author: “the lake is no longer wild” it also makes him to

understand

that

he

is

no

longer

a

teenager,

but

a

grown

up

with

his

own

personal life, children and responsibilities. He

understands that probably the

impressions from this trip will be different as he is longer a child for whom the

camping

was

the

greatest

event

of

the

year.

But

nevertheless

he

is

very

attached to those memories and the use of “same” in the description of t

he lake

only proves it.

The description of new experiences shows that the father is not able to accept

new

changes

and

adopt

them.

It

become

a

hard

a

trial

for

himself.

At

this

episodes we observe the idea of dual personality, as the reality which he has to

perceive is different from his inner world and from his expectations and hopes.

Besides, his expectations start to be ruined by the different attitude of the son

to the lake trip. E.B. White thought his on would act the same as h did when he

was a child and that for his son the trip to the lake would mean exactly the

same as it meant for him. But his son considers the trip to be a usual camping

on

the

lake

event

and

sees

nothing

special

in

it.

Father

makes

analogies

between the behavior and attitude of his son of himself in childhood and sees

that they are very different. The author also looked forward summer camping

and it turned into a certain kind of ritual to fish on the lake and simply stay in

camping. It’s clear while we read the description of the l

ake and pieces of his

memories from the past. Now it changed. Author’s son doesn’t want to get up

earlier

to

go

fishing

as

fishing

is

considered

to

be

a

regular

hobby

not

something charming and special. Author sees some kind of indifference in the