Once More to the Lake Analysis

E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake," essay is a reflection upon a family experience he had beside his favorite childhood area. Even though the essay takes places while he is in his older years, it focuses more on his childhood state with his father at the same location. White uses a myriad of rhetorical devices in his essay that paints a picture and puts you directly into the story. Not only did White use numerous rhetorical devices, but he combined rhetorical methods to bring his past to our present. White used a nicely planned set of rhetorical devices. He used strong ones that put forth a message in just the right places. White did not over-crowd, or bog down his essay with them; he simply connected them and let them flow together evenly. His use of personification and alliterations bring the essay to life. Like here with, "…two-track road," and, "…bait box…" White personifies a car as a person standing and possibly watching with the line "…cars stood in front of the store…" It is a line as such that puts the essay into your mind as a movie. A strong metaphor that White used was, "…stillness of the cathedral…," to describe the placidity of the area he was in. He creates even more images using words that appeal to the senses greatly with lines like, "…smell of the pine-laden air…" and, "…the noise they made was a sedative, an ingredient of summer sleep." White also effectively combined the descriptive and narrative methods of writing. As mentioned in the above paragraph with examples, White gave life to the sensory imagery he produced. He did so while giving his recount of his visit to the lake with his father. His use of first person tells the story as if he were face-to-face with me. In combination with his descriptiveness, it is like White took me to the lake and gave me a tour of his childhood. And he also did so while combining his past with the present. E. B. White presented to major themes in his essay. They were time and mortality. These are also very strong subjects, because they apply to everyone in the same manner; time always presses on, and everything, whether good or bad, comes to an end. The theme of time is really thrown into your face. White has a flashback to his childhood and seemingly compares it to how things are with his son. And one may also see the time theme through the transition of E. B. White as a young son, to E. B. White as an older father. All of that ties in with the theme of mortality. Like mentioned slightly earlier, nothing lasts forever. White comes to that realization when he makes the transition from first-person as son to first-person as father. He sees that so many things are in a similar fashion, but now he is the father in the childhood memory. Nostalgia can do that to people and also can bring them to the comprehension of the theme of mortality. White did an impressive job authoring his essay. He combined rhetorical writing methods excellently, and applied all the correct rhetorical devices in their correct places. White's line of attack with the rhetorical devices connected them so smoothly, a Schick Quattro's shave could not compare in the least.