WRITING ACTIVITY ABOUT "THE LAKE" BY RAY BRADBURY

Answer these questions with your opinions : (At least 120 words per answer, or
more)

1) How do you interpret the story? What do you think happened or what possible
interpretations can you think about?

2) Why did I choose this story in terms of the richness of its vocabulary and imagery?
Provide 5 examples of expressions, images or metaphoric use of language that
called your attention? (Account for your choices)

1 What literally happened in the story is that a boy named Harold was swimming in
the lake for the last time that season. Because autumn was coming and the wind
was getting too strong. He was there with a girl named Talley whom he was deeply
in love with. For some reason she did not come when her name was called. "the lake
would not let her return."Then we learn that Harold is an adult and now has a wife
named Margaret. He returns to the lake accompanied by his wife. Now we learn that
a coastguard had found a grey bag with a body inside, it seemed to be Talley. She
had died a long time ago but her body was still recognizable."She will be forever
young and I will love her forever"
Harold sees the half of a sandcastle, just like they used to make together, and some
footprints in the sand leading into the water. He enters the lake and when he comes
out. His wife has now become a stranger for he still loves Talley even though she is
dead.
2 This story is full of metaphors and amusing literary devices, the first sentence that
called my attention was when we learn that Talley has drowned "the lake would not
let her return.". The author is referring to the lake as somehow being able to make
decisions and thereof to be considered an entity.

“I lengthened my bones, put flesh on them, changed my mind for an older one, threw
away clothes as they no longer fitted, shifted from grammar to high-school, to
college”. I particularly liked this part because of the colourful vocabulary he uses to
describe something ordinary as it is growing up and makes the reader take a keen
interest in every little word.

“Even a drunken man could not collapse with such elegance as those waves.” This
short story is ridden with water imagery. Water is not an “it”. Like I said before, by the
author’s use of personification we almost feel as if the water was really alive.

“All of the hot-dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in
all the mustard, onion, meat odours of the long, joyful summer. It was like nailing
summer into a series of coffins” This phrase is also extremely interesting, the
comparison of these boarded up stands with nails in a coffin because to a child the
feeling must have been as dreadful as death itself.

“The next day, I went away on the train.

A train has a poor memory; it soon puts all behind it. It forgets the cornlands of
Illinois, the rivers of childhood, the bridges, the lakes, the valleys, the cottages, the
hurts and the joys. It spreads them out behind and they drop back of a horizon.”
This part is also extremely interesting, here he uses a train to signify once more
growing up, but specifically the idea of becoming essentially another person.