E.B. White Reading Journal

E.B White’s Once More to the Lake, narration was exceptionally good, because of the amount of description he used and the mood of nostalgia he often portrayed. The strategy of keeping his anonymous helped him describe the way he found himself thinking of the past, and putting himself in his son’s shoes while feeling like he was watching through his father’s point of view. The most effective narrative element he used was Man vs self, although the build up to the realization was slow. It creeped up to at the last few moments and swallowed you whole. For example “The had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one- the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt dizzy and didn’t know which rod I was at the end of” In which he feels himself in the spot of his son, losing grip of reality and feeling the nostalgia hit him. It’s not until the end that you realize exactly why he uses this strategy, where he states “ Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy icy garment. As he buckled his swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” It’s here that he realizes that he in fact, is not his son and that he was getting older and his realization of mortality hit him.