Once More To The Lake Rhetorical Analysis of E.B. White’s “Once
More to the Lake” E.B. White’s “Once more to the Lake” provides
keen insight into the life of a middle-aged man reflecting on
the past, present, and future. The setting of the essay
primarily resides at a lake that offered the author endless
amounts of pleasure as a child. Now as an adult, the author
wishes to relive this experience and try to recapture his youth.
Throughout the essay a major theme develops: Although the
passage of time produces a link between generations, it in
itself reflects human beings own mortality. From the age of
five, the author began to enjoy perennial pleasure at a majestic
lake in Maine with his family. As an adult, however, he seems to
have strayed away from his youth to a certain degree, and now
calls himself a “salt-water man,” no longer able to enjoy the
pleasures of a fresh, youthful life (lake). While this remains
true, the “restlessness of the tides” sometimes prevails, and he
begins to yearn for his childhood