To many people, memories bring joy. When people age however, memories fade or change and what was once remembered fondly, might only bring sadness. In E.B White’s essay “Once More to the Lake” and Billy Collin’s poem “Forgetfulness”, the authors write about memories and the feelings humans have about memories. The writing pieces also share the same theme that forgetting memories is better than seeing change. As the reader is exposed to the narrator’s memories and feelings, empathy grows because both reader and narrator share the pain of forgetting memories. Therefore, forgetting memories is better than experiencing change that causes sadness .
E.B White and Billy Collin prove that forgetting memories is better than experiencing change by …show more content…
In “Once More to the Lake” , the author paints a picture about how big a fuss arriving to the lake was in the past, but “arriving was less exciting nowadays… and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks” (White 4). This scene depicts how the narrator was disappointed when he realized he liked a big fuss about arriving because in the past it was always the same. Instead, when he arrived it was anticlimactic because packing had evolved and it was easy for each person to travel. This small action had a negative impact on the author's mood because he expected a scene to play out and when it did not, his mood was soured. Forgetting this memory altogether would have made unpacking an easier job. The poem “Forgetfulness” also paints the image of how painful the process of forgetting can be. For example, the poem states “no wonder you rise in the middle of the night” showing how the subject has only forgotten half of a memory or other information, giving them anxiety and causing them to wake up (Collins L 21). This displays that forgetting does not cause sadness, but the process of and being in the middle of forgetting something causes discomfort. The positive effect of forgetting information or a memory is that forgetting can help remove the pressure of knowing everything or knowing that