This lyrical and speculative essay Once More to the Lake is a meditation on time. The relationship between sight and insight, between observation and speculation, is evident in “Once More to the Lake,” in which he reminisces about his boyhood summer holidays in Maine. He describes the place with startling vividness and offers unsettling speculations about the meaning of his memories. The writing is rooted in the crucial act of vision, a vision that sees into and beyond the surface of his subjects. He displays the terrific power of memory and the icy chill of mortality.
About the writer E. B. White
E. B. White
began his career as a professional writer with the New Yorker magazine in the
1920s. Over the years he produced nineteen books, including collections of
essays, children's books Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, and the
long-popular writing textbook The Elements of Style. White is best known and most highly acclaimed
as an essayist. As a writer, his insights derive directly from his literal
observations, from what he sees.
Summary of the essay Once More to the Lake by E.B. White
‘Once More
to the Lake’ is a personal story told by E.B. White about his childhood
experiences at the lake where his father had taken him for an entire month in
the summer. At the beginning of the story, White begins to remember more and
more about his personal experiences at the lake when he was a child. Now, he
has revisited the lake with his son.
In this
essay, E.B White narrates a week's visit that he made with his son to the Maine
Lake where once he had gone to celebrate a vacation as a child with his father.
During his
visit with his son, he walks and fishes with his son. He feels the same
experience but less excitement as before. Now excitement and enthusiasm are not
as intense as before. Moreover, he finds that juvenile delight in his son and
tries to soothe himself internalizing the fact that everything is transitory
and subjected to fade away.
In the past,
White as a boy had gone to Maine Lake to enjoy the vacation. He and his father
stayed there for the whole of August and enjoyed the simple and serene life.
They returned there every summer despite getting ringworms and other such
rustic problems.
White with
his son visited the lake after many years. Remembering all the fun and great
experiences that he had got made him decide to bring his son to the lake. He
hopes that he will too enjoy the lake and make memories. During their journey,
he wonders how time might have changed his feeling and emotion.
On his
arrival at the lake, things were as pretty as before and the environment of the
lake was not changed much but in him, the excitement was not so intense.
Previously, he with his father had come there by farm wagon. But now they have
arrived in their car. So, during this visit, he misses that pastoral life as
well. White feels like a mirage because it echoes the serene activities that he
had made in Maine lake as he was with his father.
Activities
of his son provide him a calm sensation and make him nostalgic for his
childhood during which time he was in the Maine lake. The more he views the
son's activities, the more he remembers his childhood visit to the lake. He
thinks that time is changeable so feelings and excitement also changed. As he was
with his son, the sound of motors, the three-track road, and the waitress
reminded him of those wonderful times he had as a boy.
At present,
everything he sees and feels around the lake makes him remember his childhood
visit to the lake. In this way, White revisits his ideal boyhood vacation
spots. He finds great joy in this visit but ironically it makes him feel that
he is a grown-up man.
Frequently asked question from the essay Once More to the Lake
1. What is the main idea of “Once More to the Lake”?
Ans: The
main idea of White's essay is that the passage of time changes human feeling
and emotion in the same object, things, nature, and so on. As a result, the
theme of the essay is reflected by the title itself which is nostalgia and
nostalgic experience in human life. Everyone remembers his/her childhood memories
in the youth and adolescent stages of life. The more the writer sees his son
swimming and fishing in the lake the more his picture of childhood haunts him.
2. Who is the audience in “Once More to the Lake”?
Ans: The
audience of Maine Lake is the writer and his son.
3. What words in paragraphs 1 and 2 describe the lake?
What connotations does each possess? What overall impression is created by the
accumulation of these words? How do the final words of paragraph 3 reinforce
the impression?
Ans: In paragraphs
1 and 2, Plasticity, freshwater, holy spot, cool, motionless and so on words
are used to describe the lake. Such words connote the delightful and fresh
environment surrounding around the lake. Now, the aged author's excitement and
enthusiasm are not as intense as before.
4. What theme does the jarring sound of the new
motorboats represent?
Ans: The
Jarring sound of the new motorboats represents how technology destroys the calm
environment of nature. So, the narrator became somewhat bothered by the noise
of new motorboats that were on the lake. The new motorboats had noisier
engines. Thus, White shows the negative aspect of new technology and seems
loving for old engines or wagon and so on.
5. What is the central idea of White's essay - the key
feeling he evokes; the key concern he expresses?
Ans: The key
feeling evokes due to his revisit to Maine lake provides him a sense of
nostalgia as well as the idea of how aged he seems. White expresses his key
concern about how the lake has changed and his feeling about his son being him
and him being his father. The feelings from the past had not changed even
though he was older. So, he writes: “I began to wonder what it would be like. I
wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot.”
6. What contrast does White make between the sea and a
lake, and why does he make this contrast in his opening paragraph?
Ans: In contrast to the sea, the lake is calm
and everlasting. It is presented as the embodiment of White's childhood
memories themselves. With Maine Lake, White feels that he is reliving his
childhood memories. So, White describes the lake as a “constant and trustworthy
body of water”. Both the lake and his childhood memories seem magically
interconnected. He makes this contrast in his opening paragraph because unlike
the sea, the lake is constant and trustworthy but, in the sea, there can come
anytime storm and harms the visitors.
7. What happens in the closing paragraph? How does it
reinforce the central concerns of the essay? Who do you think has changed: the
place or the person? Why?
Ans: In the
closing paragraph, when he is watching his son pull on cold swim trunks and
seems to feel the coldness himself but interprets it as the chill of death is
that the narrator himself will someday be in the same position occupied by his
father (the grandfather of the story) and that means he will be dead. This is a
profound realization that few young people have gone through unless their
experiences include having to face the death of a friend or someone else their
age. It can be so profound and depressing an awareness that it could completely
alter the enjoyment the narrator was having in revisiting the lake.
8. Divide the essay into sections and provide titles
for each part.
Ans: The
essay can be divided into three parts and the title of each part can be 'writer
as son', 'writer with the son', and 'writer as he now'.
9. Find an example of a final effective sentence in a
paragraph and explain how it completes the paragraph.
Ans: I think
the line “peace and goodness and jollity” is an effective sentence that in the
entire paragraph shows the peace and joy environment of Maine Lake.
10. A number of sentences resonate with repeated words
and phrases. Find three such sentences.
Ans: The
repetition of “summer after summer .... .” informs a reader that this was an
annual vacation. He repeats "Summertime, oh summertime .......” He also
repeats “there had been no years ....” throughout the essay.
11. White employs the same words in different
sentences.
Ans: “There
had been jollity and peace and goodness.”
12. Examine paragraphs 9 and 10 to see how the essayist
uses comparison and contrast to elaborate his point about the place.
Ans: In
paragraphs 9 and 10, the writer is using the technique of comparison and
contrast between his experience as a child in the past and as a father in the
present. In paragraph 9, White goes back to the times when he was a child
comparing them with the things he does now, “It seemed to me, as I kept remembering
all this, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and
worth saving.” He seems glad that he remembered the stuff from his past. Using
his past experiences, he is able to make the current times more enjoyable. In
paragraph 10 he writes: “The only thing that was wrong now, really, was the
sound of the place, an unfamiliar nervous sound of the outboard motors”.
13. Write an essay about a place you have revisited
after a long absence. Try to account for what the place meant to you after the
first visit and after the later visit.
Ans: My
father is no more now. When he was alive, he would take me to visit the zoo.
Being a child, I would feel great excitement viewing elephants, and tigers,
especially I would feel intense joy while viewing colorful birds in the zoo.
Now I am a school teacher. As an educational tour, before two weeks, I
revisited it with my school students. The environment was the same. There were
also colorful birds as before but I did not get more exciting than when I had
visited it with my father.
14. Besides time and change, what is this essay about?
Ans: Besides
time and change, this essay is about nature vs technology. New technology
affects the cool environment of nature. For example, as the narrator with his son
visits Maine Lake, he is disturbed by the noise of new motorboats.
15. What is the difference between the lake when White
was a boy and when he takes his son there?
Ans: E.B.
White shows the lake is unchanged but our vision and perception view the lake
change as time goes on flowing. White as a boy found enormous effects and
excitement in the lake but as he goes with his son to the same lake, he does
not find such excitement. He also lost the rustic environment in the lake. As
he had gone with his father, the surrounding of the lake was calm and cool but
as he goes with his son, there was the noise of new motorboats.
16. The personal and autobiographical source of the
essay is authenticated by its concrete and specific language. Discuss.
Ans: This narrative
essay has an autobiographical flavor tone. In this essay, the writer plays the
role of the narrator telling the story to the readers. The writer himself is
the central character because his experience as a child with his father and his
present experience as a father with his son are beautifully contrasted. His
emotion and present experience make the complex subject matter in this essay.
The setting is the same place which is a lake area in the Maine State of
America.
17. “Do memories remain the same or do they change?
Give some concrete examples from your personal experience.
Ans: With
time, memories change. In my life, many events and incidents had happened in my
childhood. When I was a child, even the tiny matter was important to me. As I
saw ants fighting, I would watch their fighting with great importance but now
to view such tiny matters, I feel awkward and boring’.