Figurative Language In Once More To The Lake
Graves 1
Cody Graves
English 111, J05
December 6, 2014
Literary Analysis: E.B. White – Once More to the Lake, Final Draft
Memories
E.B. White, born in 1899, wrote children's books, essays, and was an editor. In
E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake”, White goes back to Maine Lake where his father had taken his family to camp every August. While at the Lake with his son, White reflects on his own childhood. This essay is profoundly powerful and relatable to many people as most experience some sort of get away from the city life and escape into the wild. White uses the dash, figurative language, cumulative sentences, flashbacks, sensory details, and extraordinary descriptive writing to show us the importance of time and the change, if there is
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White uses a tremendous amount of sensory detail in this essay, which allows us to feel, hear, taste, and see everything that White is remembering and/or experiencing again. “In the day time, in the hot mornings, these motors made a petulant, irritable sound at night, in the still evening when the afterglow lit the water, they whined about one’s ears like mosquitoes” (White 462). This quote is used to describe the motors and the sounds that they made at different times. He talks about these motors for the entirety of the paragraph, using sensory detail to practically make us hear what he hears. The use of these sensory details shows us that not only White’s experiences as they are happening with his son are vivid, but also how he can remember his own childhood so vividly.
White’s use of descriptive writing is an important element in this essay. If we try to read this essay with no kind of extended description of what is happening, the entire feel of the essay would be totally different. White’s style of writing is very descriptive, which goes along with the use of sensory details, but the descriptive writing in
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Some sort of descriptive writing follows every experience in the essay; nothing is left unexplained. “A school of minnows swam by, each minnow with its small individual shadow, doubling the attendance, so clear and sharp in the sunlight” (White 460). This quote shows that white doesn’t just stop when he explains the minnows fly by, he continues to explain what he sees. He describes his experiences intensely in his writing, making this essay very personal. With him describing the experiences so passionately, not only will he remember them like the way he is describing them, but the directly relate to past experiences. Things may change, but the memories remain the same.
E.B White’s “Once More to the Lake”, is a powerful and relatable essay. White uses the dash, figurative language, cumulative sentences, flashbacks, sensory details, and extraordinary descriptive writing to show us the importance of time and the change, if there is any, which it brings along. We can see, feel, taste, and White’s personal experiences through this essay.
Graves 5
Cohen, Samuel S. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
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