Weilin Chen
Seminar 126G
Teddy Chocos
10/28/2013
Response of Once More to the Lake
Once More to the Lake which written by E. B. White is mainly talking about White
took his son back to a lake in Maine where White and his old man used to go every
summer and in the meantime, he recalled all the beautiful memories of those good old
days with his father, combines days with his son, states different experiences between
three generations and the same feeling of one place, at different time. White uses
many beautiful words to describe his favorite place, tried to bring every his reader
into the article and feel how he feel. According to White, “ I guess I remembered
clearest of all the early morning, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered
how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and wet woods whose scent
entered through the screen”. White uses his word to show us a incrediable screen with
describing what he saw and what he smell. It puts you into a condition that you step
out a lake house, temperature is cool and the first fresh air you breath comes with a
great smells of woods. Everything is so wonderful, just like how White describes. In
White’s article, he also tells the difference between the lake he went with his father
and the lake he went with his son. White says “Peace and goodness and jollity. The
only thing that was wrong now, really, was the sound of the place, an unfamiliar
nervous sound of the outboard motors.” White think this “unfamiliar nervous sound
broke his illusion and brought him back to reality. Basically, White is saying that
although his feeling and his love of this place has never changed, something have
change already. But why does White describe this lake before like it never change and
now he points out the difference between the lake he went with his father and the lake
he went with his son? There is another quote that provides the answer. White wrote
about that he sometimes get a illusion that his son was him and he was his father.
White says “ I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple
transposition, that I was my father; I seemed to be living a dual existence;” The reason
why White began to sustain the illusion is because the role between the three
generations has change since White’s boy was born. White’s father took him to the
lake as a father and White which used to be a son, now is taking his son to the lake as
a father, too. This change is like a endless circle that will repeat again and again
between the White family. Maybe White’s son will take his son to lake in the future,
too. According to this quote, combining the previous two quote, I think the answer of
my question is the circulation of human is endless and unstoppable. No matter the
environment is changing or not, your memory is losing or not, your feeling is
disappearing or not, it will sustain from new born to dead, from childhood to
adulthood, from generation to generation. And i think this is also the main idea of this
article.