Lake's Reflection

3 Pages 643 Words

A chip off of the old block or not. E.B. White’s essay “ Once More to the Lake,” is about a father and son trip to a lake. The same lake that the father and his father went to year after year. White uses great detail and description in the essay to describe how the father feels about the lake and the way his son reacts to it. The father hopes that the son will enjoy the lake and the trip as much as he did when he was a young one. White allows the reader to believe that this essay is about the trip and trip only, but the story is about a father struggling to find himself.
Throughout the whole story White suggests that the father is looking back on his childhood years and trying to relive them through his son’s eyes. At first, the father seems unable to adjust to the way things have changed around the lake. He seems a little uneasy that arriving at the lake was nothing to look forward to because it was all over in a few minutes. White writes how the father begins to find all the things that have changed since he had been there last. After pointing out the changes, the father begins to start seeing himself doing the same task as if he was still a little boy. He is trying to live a dual life at this point. He is being himself and trying to be his son at the same time. White writes, “I seemed to be living a dual existence” (740). White writes, “I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hand that held his rod, my eyes watching” (740). The father was so wrapped up in being


his son that he began to think he was holding the rod and watching his boys hook. While on the trip, the father begins remembering all of his memories. The times he had shared with his father as a boy and now he was sharing them with his boy. White describes his memories of when he went with his father and how some will be shared with his son. It seems that the little bo...