Compare And Contrast Billy Collins And E. B White

Where there is life, there is death, such is the unwritten law that has continuously rippled throughout time. There is not one man nor animal, who has defied this law: but yet there are still many who try. In E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake”, White develops a story of his dual existence with his son. In White’s personal essay, White creates a facade in order to blind himself from reality. Similarly, in Billy Collins’ “Forgetfulness”, Collins describes his negligence towards the speed of time, resulting in his loss memories. In both texts, the authors seem to share a common ignorance towards their mortality. Therefore, both Billy Collins and E.B. White use similar literary devices in order to develop the common theme of man’s battle

White develops the theme by describing a dual existence he experiences when he is spending time with his son, “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and by simple transposition that I was my father.” (White 2). As the story progresses, White seems to believe that “there had been no years” since the first day his father took him to the lake till the present day where he had taken his son to the lake (White 3). This demonstrates White denying his own mortality and that he is incapable of accepting the fact that he is now the father and not the son. During the time while White was still blind to reality, White used diction with negative connotation like “infinite”, “primeval”, and “remember” which allude to the fact the facade that White has created which is that White is now the son and not the father (White 1-2). This also proves the theme of man’s inner struggle as White is shown to be facing an identity crisis. Similarly, in “Forgetfulness”, Collins develops the story by describing how he is lost and has nowhere to go because everything he once remembered is “slipping away” (Collin 4). By this, Collins is alluding to death. This meaning that the act of him forgetting his memories foreshadows the fact that his death is near. To demonstrate this point, Collins uses diction that resembles his emotional state of distress as he uses words such as “floated”, “oblivion” and “forgotten”

When Collins describes his memories leaving him as kissing away the names “of the nine Muses”, the Muses symbolizes the knowledgeable aspects of Collins memories (Collins 1). This shows how lost and how much Collins has lost because although the elderly are considered more knowledgeable, considering the mental state of Collins, it seems that Collins has finally surrendered himself to the reality of his mortality. Similarly, in “Once more to the lake”, White watches his son’s “hard little body, skinny and bare,” (White 5). The body of his son opens White’s eyes because although the body is his son’s, the body also symbolizes the dying body of White’s father. White is suddenly struck with a “chill of death” as he realizes that he, like his father, would die. Also, when Collins says, “It has floated away down a dark mythological river”, the river symbolizes his life, and like a river, it is flowing away (Collins 1). Likewise, at the end of “Once More to the Lake”, White mentions the “new sensation of bathing in the rain” (White 5). Evidently, White is not just enjoying the sensation of rain, but instead, the rain symbolizes reality: it is just that White has not realized that reality had finally caught up with him. At the end of both “Forgetfulness” and “Once More to the Lake”, it seems that Collins and White have finally ended their internal battle and have