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¶ … Lake
In the short story "Once More to the Lake," author E.B. White describes his childhood summertime experiences. Each year his father would rent a camping spot for a whole month and the family would play and go fishing in the lake. Reflecting on his experiences, the narrator describes how he decided to revisit the lake with his own son. "Once More to the Lake" is therefore mainly about the nature of family, especially the father-son relationship.
The opening line of the story establishes the theme of family and emphasizes the role of the father: "One...
For example, the narrator states, "I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows." At first, the narrator believes that he will simply be recreating his childhood and evoking memories. He wants his son to experience the same delights he had by the…
In the short story "Once More to the Lake," author E.B. White describes his childhood summertime experiences. Each year his father would rent a camping spot for a whole month and the family would play and go fishing in the lake. Reflecting on his experiences, the narrator describes how he decided to revisit the lake with his own son. "Once More to the Lake" is therefore mainly about the nature of family, especially the father-son relationship.
The opening line of the story establishes the theme of family and emphasizes the role of the father: "One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August." The theme of father-son relationship is reiterated throughout the tale, as the narrator reflects on his own perceptions of fatherhood and family. For example, the narrator states, "I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows." At first, the narrator believes that he will simply be recreating his childhood and evoking memories. He wants his son to experience the same delights he had by the lake. However, many things at the campsite have changed over time. The narrator cannot help but feel a "creepy sensation" that "I was my father." Because he is recreating the exact moments of his childhood, the narrator becomes acutely aware that he is becoming his father and that his son is becoming himself. The realization is powerful and reminds the author of his mortality. The final line of the short story reads, "As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death." White is not trying to be morbid, but rather, is trying to show what prompts people to have children.
In E.B. White's short story "Once More to the Lake," family is presented in a positive light: "those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness." The narrator tries to recreate these same positive sensations for his son. When he does so he realizes the importance of family. The narrator realizes that having a son allows him to somehow live forever, through passing on his father's genes and his own memories. Therefore, "Once More to the Lake" is primarily a tale about fatherhood and family.
Freed's exploration of the theme of dysfunction is often compared to that of Shepard. However, the main distinction is that of tone: while Shepard's play is dark and somber, Freed's text is a dark, ironical comedy which ironically sketches the tensioned relationships between the members of a reunited family and their inability to communicate. The relationship between Noah and Seth is especially strained, as Seth seems to force himself into
Father and Son Relationships Though written from very different perspectives, "Death of a Salesman" and the Namesake share a number of important similarities, particularly with regard to similar messages about fathers and sons. The conflicts and complexities of father/son relationships are explored by both Arthur Miller and Jhumpa Lahiri in their characters Willy, Biff, and Happy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" and Ashoke and Gogol Ganguli in the Namesake. Yet,
Eliezer and his father Over the course of the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the narrator Eliezer's relationship with his father shifts from that of a conventional father-son relationship to a relationship in which Eliezer eventually becomes the stronger of the two men. Eliezer quickly becomes a man because of the historical circumstances to which he is subjected. Growing up in a concentration camp he soon learns that his father
Architect: A Son's Journey could easily be viewed as a solipsistic documentary. The filmmaker deliberately titles the film as My Architect, with a subtitle A Son's Journey as a way of signaling the viewer that this is Nathaniel Kahn's vision of his father. Nathaniel's purpose for making the film is expressly stated as being the discovery of his father's identity, especially following the mystery of his death. Yet through
Kim Fathering Kim The concept of a "coming of age" novel or a Bildungsroman is fairly well established, typically exploring the loss of innocence and the growing awareness -- both of the self and of the external world -- of the protagonist of the story, typically an adolescent male. There are many variations on this overall idea of a coming of age novel, of course, with characters and plots the cover a
The remarkable parable of the prodigal son has instrumental instructional value. As Donahue points out, the Lukan context is the original and most meaningful, as it pivots around the father’s behavior and firmly establishes the older son as being the antagonist. The parable of the prodigal son has multiple layers of meaning, and even establishes new paradigms for the human relationship with God. On a more mundane level, the parable