Once More To The Lake Analysis

E.B. White’s Nostalgic Lake of Memories

Everyone ages. E.B. White’s memoir,“Once More to the Lake”, illustrates the vivid memories that White experienced while remembering the days gone by. White’s story has a profound meaning because it relates to many people. It’s not required to be an animal rights advocate, have parents that do not speak fluent English, have a disability, or live in the outdoors to relate to him. White’s story seems to be just a whiff of nostalgia on the surface, but there is a much more fundamental lesson within it. In his essay, White utilizes descriptive imagery that shows his dizzy feelings of nostalgia and internal conflict of dual existence, and the realization of his own morality. Time persists, so it should be cherished, as the cycle of life continues and reclaims what it has granted.

When White portrays his time at the lake, he tells about how time brings change.

He explains that even if he feels that he is reliving his childhood at the lake, time shows its effects by introducing technological advancements. He does that when he describes a path to a farmhouse. White explains that the center path, the one marked by horses and their droppings, was no longer there (300). In addition, he does that when talking about his servers at the farmhouse. White says that although they were practically the same young women, they had seen women in films and had been influenced to clean their hair, and that was the only change that he could notice (301). Furthermore, he goes into great detail explaining motorboats, saying “they whined about one’s ears like mosquitoes” (302). This is an important aspect of the story because it shows that some people have great problems with change. White’s son may remember the sound of the motorboat as a soothing sound that brings him back to the lake. It shows that there are different perspectives on change, and that maybe the sound of the motorboat only disturbs him because it doesn’t fit his childhood memories of the

lake.
The underlying lesson that lies in White’s story, however, is the cycle of life and how he fits into it. This is crucial because everyone fits into it, and everyone will return to it. White, at the end of the story, mentions, “as he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death” (303). Perhaps many parents have grasped this idea when they have noticed that their children are what they used to be, that they are now their parents, and that their parents are either seniors or dead. Logically, they will fit into this when they will become what their parents are, dead, which fears them the most. Parents are not the only ones to realize the cycle of life, however. I have noticed this with my older brother, my younger brother, and I. As a young child, my older brother would play videogames with me, and I would cry when I would lose. Then he would get annoyed and I would still be crying like a baby. Now, I’m like my older brother, because whenever I play videogames with my younger brother, I play normally and he cries whenever he loses. It’s remarkable when a situation is seen from both perspectives, and that’s what White was trying to express to his readers.
White’s story is significant because it validates that change brings powerful emotions to people's minds, and that simple childhoods don’t last forever. It means a great deal to me because I still consider myself a child. I imagine being an adult and reminiscing about the old times, seeing how things have changed, yet somehow, they’ve remained just the same.