Once More to the Lake

Once More to the Lake

By E.B. White

Techniques

-Use of anaphora and polysyndeton

"I kept remembering everything, lying in bed in the mornings- the small steamboat that had a long rounded stern like the lip of Ubangi, and how quietly she ran on the moonlight sails, when the older boys played mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in sugar, and how sweet the music was on the water in the shining night, and what it had felt like to think about girls then."

"...the first smell of pine laden air, the first glimpse of the smiling farmer, and the great importance of the trunks and your father's enormous authority in such matters, and the feel of the wagon under you for the long ten-mile haul, and at the top of the last long hill catching the first view of the lake after eleven months of not seeing this cherished body of water."

In this passage White describes how he remembers feeling when first arriving at the Lake when he was young. The description is then juxtaposed with

"(Arriving was less exciting nowadays, when you

sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks)."

This juxtaposition shows how White is noticing the changes that time had on the lake and, ultimately, in his life.

The repetition of "the first" and the connector "and" illustrates the way the author remembers his time at the lake. His memories, despite the amount of time he's been away, are all clear and flow quickly through his mind.

White describes a thunderstorm that occurs during his and his son's stay that sparks memories.

Reptition

"One afternoon while we were there at that lake a thunderstorm came up. It was like the revival of an old melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish awe."

Throughout the text, white repeats the phrases "There had been no years," and "There having been no passage of time" in the midst of describing his memories of the lake.

"...the kettle drum, then the snare, then the bass drum and cymbals, then crackling light against the dark, and the gods grinning and licking their chops in the hills."

"There had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one-the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn't know which rod I was at the end of."

White uses a metaphor to compare the sounds of the storm to the sound of a drum set, the rain and wind to that of angry gods. This illustrates the "old melodrama" he describes remembering.

"...the calm, the rain steadily rustling in the calm lake, the return of light and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and relief to go swimming in the rain..."

The phrase "There had been no years" used in this example and found in other parts of the essay point out the fact that White's memories have muddled his ability to distinguish between the present and the past. He says that he "felt dizzy" and "didn't know which rod I was at the end of," which illustrates his point that his past and his present were blurred and he was confused as to whether he was himself or his son or his father. It shows how hard it was for him to let go of the past and realize that everyone grows old, thus exposing his internal conflict of Man vs. Self.

"I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father."

White then goes on to describe the Lake after the storm begins to die down. His use of several short clauses illustrates how quickly the storm came and went and how, consequently, his life came and went. This idea is presented more clearly as the sentence continues:

"...their bright cries perpetuating the deathless joke about how they were getting simply drenched, and the children screaming with delight at the new sensation of bathing in the rain, and the joke about getting drenched linking the generations in a strong indestructible chain. And the comedian wading in carrying an umbrella."

"There was a choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and one was apple, and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been no passage of time, only an illusion of it as in a dropped curtain- the waitresses were still fifteen; their hair had been washed, that was the only difference-they had been to the movies and seen the pretty girls with the clean hair."

Theme: The passage of time

Again, the phrase "there having been no passage of time" is being used to emphasize to the reader the fact that White was living in the past and refusing to face the reality of time passing him by. It also reinforces his internal conflict of not being able to accept the reality of life not lasting forever.

Mode: Narrative

White's essay focuses on his experience of returning to the Lake he spent his childhood summers in. There with his son, the passage of time and the natural changes around him(growing from child to adult, impending death) become more evident with the changes he sees in the Lake. It becomes clearer to him that growing old is a reality that everyone, even he, must face. Throughout the essay, White struggles to accept that life does not last forever just as his memories of the Lake did not last forever

Purpose

White's purpose is to produce an increased understanding

-He tells this story of his own wake-up call regarding mortality, and that things naturally come and go.

"...I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death."

"The only thing wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous sound of the outboard motors. This was the note that jarred, the one thing that would sometimes break the illusion and set the years moving."

This quote reinforces the idea of the course of life. White realizes his son is now in the position he remembers himself in, thus bringing to the forefront of his mind that life comes and goes.

"I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot... I was sure that that the tarred road would have found it out, and I wondered in what other ways it would be desolated."

White references the sound of the motors on the boats found on the lake. The new sounds wake him up from his memory-filled haze and thrust the reality of life and death back at him.

"In those other summertimes all motors were inboard...they all made a sleepy sound across the lake...The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too."

"But now the campers all had outboards...in the hot mornings, these motors made a petulant, irritable sound; at night...they whined about one's ears like mosquitoes."