Reference no: EM132587955

Hi, I need help getting this essay peer edited Once More to the Lake

Once More to the Lake is a personal essay written E. B. White; the essay is about a boy and his father who take a trip to a lake which the father used to come to when he was a kid with his dad. White reflects on his childhood when his father would take him to the lake and all things they would, then he explains how he is taking his son to the same lake. While at the lake, White talks about what has and hasn't changed about the lake; he is struggling to control his identity and shifts between himself now and him as a kid. The theme of identity in the essay is presented as something the man cannot control; he is having trouble telling if he is a child walking with his dad or a parent walking with his son. This identity crisis occurs is because now back at the lake again the man feels the impact of the role of the father.

Firstly, in the essay White cannot control his identity because he is having trouble telling if he is an adult or a child. White is trying to relive his childhood through his son, he imagines himself doing things he wishes his son would do. In the fourth paragraph White says, "I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father" (White 4). In the quote above it is evident that White is so attached to this place that when he comes back, he begins to lose himself in his childhood identity; he starts to imagine that he is his son and his father is him. "I seemed to be living a dual existence" (4) White says this because he is his adult self at the lake, but he is also identifying himself as the child he was years ago.

Secondly, this identity crisis occurs because now that White is at the lake again but this time with his son, he feels the impact of the role of the father. While at the lake with his son White creates an illusion for himself because when he used to come to the lake with his father, he had a long life ahead of him. "As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death" (13) at the end of the essay White finally comes out of the illusion he created and realizes that his son's maturity means that he is getting old. For White taking on his father role means that he needs to accept that he is old and that he can no longer live in the memories of his childhood identity.

In conclusion, White has a hard time controlling his identity because he does not want to accept the role of his father. So, he convinces himself that he has come to the lake as a child, not an adult and tries to relive his childhood by imagining old identities. The text shows that it is possible to have a struggle with your identity just like White does in the essay.