2. Author E.B. White clearly represents the theme in this essay which is your physical life may come to an end, but your spirit will continue to live on. White is mentioning a fishing trip he is on with his son, and he suddenly starts in envision himself as a young child. He is having flashbacks from when he was a boy on the lake with his father who has passed away. We know his father is dead from the line “As he buckled the swollen belt my groin felt the chill of death” (White 42). White is realizing he is no longer in his youth, and that his life is passing him by and soon he will be dead just like his father. White also includes a very important line “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and by therefore by simple transposion, that I was my father) (White 38). The “he” in this line is talking about his son, and that White is now older in his dads position. Whereas White’s life is growing old and coming to an end, his spirit is living through his young child, and it will continue on.