Change In Elwyn Brooks White's Once More To The Lake

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There is nothing in life that is more everlasting than change. As described in Elwyn Brooks White’s "Once More to the Lake," change is at the very center of our being. During the years in between White’s visits to the lake, we can see a change not only in people’s age, but their surroundings as well. In 1941, after a tense emotion to revisit old haunts and an inner need for the placidity of the lake, White takes his son fishing in the very same Maine waters, as he did with his father in 1904. Only what White remembered had changed forever. Three of the changes having occurred since White’s earlier visits to the lake were two-track roads instead of three, waitresses who actually wash their hair in place of the country girls who did not, and outboard motors versus the old one-cylinder inboard motors. The first indication of change, was a two-track road instead of the three-track road leading to the farmhouse, that White remembered as a child. In the old days, commuters would ride horses to get around, from going to the grocery store to leisurely activities such as enjoying a day at the lake. White writes, “The middle track was missing, the ones with the marks of hooves and the splotches of dried, flaky manure“(31). With one of his choices no longer available. White began to miss…show more content…
White appreciated the fact that he; his self got older. Because of everlasting change and the boundaries imposed by time, White could never go back to his youth. He was permanently altered along with the middle track he favored so much missing, the indirect influence on the waitresses' hair, and the louder noise from the outboard motors. Elwyn Brooks White’s "Once More to the Lake," illustrates that locations gone to in the early stages of life will be there for many years to come, maybe forever. However, they will also forever be just a memory of fun times and moments of pure

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