Childhood Memories in Once More to the Lake by E.B. White

604 Words2 Pages

Once More to the Lake For many people there is a sweet scent, an inviting image, the familiar sound of laughter that bring them back to a place full of childhood images. In “Once More to the Lake”, author E.B. White longs to bring his audience back to one of the most memorable places in his childhood, a camp on a lake in Maine, starting in about 1904. He shows the reader how he feels he has replaced his own father and is playing the same role he played nearly forty years earlier. White directs his essay at an anonymous audience. Read by children, it is yet another “when I was your age” story, but to an adult or parent he is quite successful in provoking old forgotten memories. The author assumes his audience will, at least somewhat, empathize with him. White describes his surroundings so well that one needs no prior knowledge of the lake to feel as though they are truly there. He thoroughly describes the sights, discussing the woods around the cabin, the cool and motionless lake, the cottages sprinkled on the shore, the old farmhouse where the campers gather to dine. White also ...

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