TOW #2- Once More to the Lake by E.B White

Once More to the Lake, written by E.B White, is a short story that demonstrates the relationship between his son and him. White tells tales from his childhood lake house, where he then brings his son many years later and ultimately faces his internal conflict. E. B White is known for writing children books such as Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and is a contributor to the New Yorker magazine. For most of the story he is at the lake with his son, which acts as the constant through the story; a symbol that he reinforces several times. From the beginning he presents a very playful and positive tone towards the readers, which is accomplished through his word choice. His general audience is people who struggled with moving on that can relate to what he was going through, which in his case is moving on from his memories. Despite the fact that he writes a very interesting and detailed packed autobiography he could have caused confusion due to the quick time jumping. He tends to jump from his experiences as a child to his son’s experiences; this allows confusion because it may be difficult to distinguish the two characters. The reader’s quickly learn that he is scared to go back to the lake in fear that it has changed and his son won’t get the same experience as he did as a young boy. I found the story line to be confusing to follow and he could have used better rhetorical devices than he did. I felt as if his whole story was made up of imagery, and did a great job including the five senses, but because it was difficult to follow I didn’t know what character he was using. The conflict that White faces is distinguishing himself from his son and realizing that he is growing older, getting closer to death. He notices that the lake hasn’t changed, but something is different, with that being said the readers learn that he is the changing variable. Ultimately his purpose was probably to entertain his reader, and to demonstrate the struggles he faced in hopes to connect with the readers, which is some ways he successfully did.