White: Once More to the Lake
The selection’s dominant impression is about how time passes and how memories fade away in the aspect of change. In other words, the father implies that change and time are constant and that they cannot be escaped. This is illustrated when he says, “I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot—the covers and streams, the hills that the sun set behind.” Through this statement, he suggests that time might have impacted the place that he liked when he was still young. The main concept is that as time changes, people’s ability to recall memories is a sophisticated process that consists of both negative and positive experiences. In the essay, White contrasts his memories in the past with the complex
…show more content…
The event that first prompts this sensation is when his son sneaks outs to go for a little joy ride on the boat while he is still in bed. During his childhood, he had been doing the same when he was with his father and when the son also sneaks out, he feels as if he is his father. The setting made the memory recur because he viewed himself as living in a dual existence. Fishing made him feel the same damp moss that he had felt when he was with his father. In addition, the fishing fly alighted at the tip of his rod had then convinced him that time had passed but the memories and experiences were the same. This was the turning moment that the father had made the realization that he was his father as past memories of him with his father were rekindled. Other thoughts that made him feel as if he were his own father include: small waves being the same and using a boat similar to the one he had used with his father. Similarly, he experiences ribs being broken at the same places that they had been broken when he had gone with his father to the lake. Moreover, swimming also brought back the memories since the lake was at the same place that it had been when he was young. As he swam with his son, he remembered the way he used to swim with his father at the same lake and in the same way that he was swimming with his son. As a result, one could argue that White’s return to the lake has both similarities and differences compared to when he used to visit it with his