Welty and White: Childhood Innocence

Welty and White: Childhood Innocence The words and descriptions that an author uses are to provoke a response in the reader. They are not just telling a story but are trying to show the reader their vision. In this case it is the vision and remembrance of the past and how it shaped their perceptions of the world. Eudora Welty’s “The Little Store” is about the innocence and simplicity of childhood, which she shows by her description of the neighborhood she grew up in and the trips to the store she would make. E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake” is a narrative about the peaceful simple times of a summer vacation at the lake that his family took every August. Welty’s “The Little Store” and White’s “Once more to the Lake” are both essays that effectively use descriptive words to draw the reader into the story. There is a similarity in the ways that both authors use descriptions of scent, sound and color to evoke fond memories. Both stories are about how the author’s went from simple childish innocence to the awareness of the reality around them.
White appears to have arrived at a point in his life as an adult where he is tired of the hustle and bustle of his life and remembers the fun and also the peaceful times he had as a child at the lake. As a child, he and his family went there for the entire month of August every year because “none of them ever thought there was any place in the world like that lake in Maine” (163). White has not found another place that comes close to giving the same sense of pleasure that he and his family experienced at the lake in Maine. He wants to share this with his son so that he can experience the same sense of freedom that he had experienced as a child. White describes his trip and the arrival at the lake both in the present time and as he perceived it to be in his childhood. He shows the reader the many differences that have occurred to the area surrounding the lake. The road is now paved and goes the entire way to

Cited: Welty, Eudora. ”The Little Store.” Seeing & Writing 3. Eds. Christine McQuade and Donald McQuade. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2006. 155-159. Print White, E.B. ”Once More to the Lake.” Seeing & Writing 3. Ed. Christine McQuade and Donald McQuade. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2006. 162-167. Print