Preview

Greasy Lake Essay

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1359 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Greasy Lake Essay
Greasy Lake Essay

In the short story Greasy Lake written by T.C. Boyle, the story is about three friends who believe they are “bad”. On a particular night they go out looking for trouble, and trouble is what they find. The tone of this story is serious, dark, and very graphic. This story is full of literary devices. Metaphors and similes come thick and fast on the shores of Greasy Lake, and Boyle never contents himself with one when he can offer two or three. The comparisons for their abundance, are neither aimless nor without purpose; they enable us to see the referent from strategic points of view. For this essay I will analyze the unnamed narrator whom is the protagonist in the story. The story opens up with the narrator describing the current times. There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste. (Boyle 77) He and his friends, nineteen at the time, like to consider their selves bad characters. He then goes on to describe there wardrobe wearing torn up jackets, slouchy appearance with toothpicks in their mouth, sniffing glue and ether, and striking poses to show they didn’t give a shit about anything.(Boyle 77) As I began reading and took into context that Boyle was really trying to get his point across about them being bad. Maybe they were trying a little too hard to put on this appearance. The narrator describes his friends as two dangerous characters Digby and Jeff. Digby wore a gold earring, while attending college at Cornell that his father paid for and Jeff went to school but was thinking about dropping out to pursue another career as a painter/musician/head-shop proprietor. Obviously pretending to be people they weren’t while trying to fit in with the new fad. They wore dark shades morning and night and wherever they went. The narrator goes far and beyond to make sure the reader knows they were three bad characters. They whipped around in their parents station

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    I first knew something bad and rebellious was going to happen when the author described the time period that the story took place in. "There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste"(130). The characters in the story wanted to be bad; it was cool to be bad during this time period. "We wore torn-up leather jackets and, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine" (130). These are the clothes and attitudes of misfits, rebels and druggies who think they are untouchable by the rules of society. "We drank gin and grape juice, Tango, Thunderbird, and Bali Hai. We were nineteen. We were bad." (130). The characters are trying to tell us that they drank and partied and that this made them cool because they were only nineteen. I knew then these obviously weren't stand up citizens going out for a fine dinner. These were mindless children looking for trouble. I could tell where this story was headed by the way T. Coraghessan Boyle laid out the setting of the story.…

    • 848 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Similes are exploited throughout Richard Connell’s twisted and page turning story. “ Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back , but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech.” Connell’s purpose for this simile is to build a pathway into your imagination. He wanted his writing to compare to your own life. He accomplished all of this through using different people, animals, and putting the character in rare situations. He compares the quicksand to the…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Greasy Lake

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages

    There comes a time in every young man's life for him to break a barrier of reality to go from invincibility to mortality. They have to take that leap forward gradually, but as they do they will make mistakes along the way and have to learn from the bad ones. The short story “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle is about three young men who have to break that barrier of reality in one horrible night by making mistake after mistake, only they have to learn from their mistakes quickly or they wont get out of their bad situation. There are two different symbols, themes, and characters that have meaning to it in this story. The symbols are the key being lost, and the water itself signifies a rebirth. The themes that are seen in this story are that the point of view was told from an older person looking back at his younger years and that he would have to learn from the mistakes of the past. The characters that have meanings to them are the main character and Bobby (the bad guy).…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    Greasy Lake

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Walker, Michael. "Boyle 's `Greasy Lake ' And The Moral Failure Of Postmodernism." Studies In Short Fiction 31.2 (1994): 247. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. This article talks about how Boyle is a somewhat a dark writer and how he is great at setting the mood by using certain words metaphors and similes. The writer talks about how in “Grease Lake” Boyle denies his characters the possibility of learning anything from the situations they are in.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife’s situations were all examples of what occurred in the 1930’s as a result of the discrimination during that time. Because of this common lifestyle, people were often lonely and either accepted their situation and secluded themselves from society like Crooks, or refused to admit defeat and strived to connect with others in the same way as Candy and Curley’s wife did. Either way, all characters during the economic crisis lived a lonely and depressing life. And in a sense, the Great Depression was the kickstart for a great deal of depression in…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He tells the story of a young girl and boy in trying situations and persuades his audience to feel sorry for them. The boy lives in a bad area. His father is “jobless” and his mother is a “sleep-in domestic.” The girl must take on the “role of [a] mother” because her “mother died.” What reader can help but feeling sorry for a young child who has no hope? They still live in fear and desolation and have no hope, for their race is sinking. Once, their people worked with “George Washington” and “shed blood in the revolution.” But, they fell from higher hopes and were put on “slave ships... in chains.” The reader can’t help but feel sorry for a race that has been so abused and taken advantage of.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main character in "Greasy Lake" seeks out and embraces violence. For him, "bad" (Boyle 130) is a necessary persona portrayed by a total disregard for the rules laid down by society. The main character and his friends ride around drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and looking for trouble, "On this, the third night, we'd cruised… been in every bar and club… and chucked two dozen raw eggs at mailboxes and hitchhikers" (Boyle 131). For him, violence is something sought and a needed for enjoyment.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "Greasy Lake", the narrator also learns something new – one's appearance does not represent one's true self. Three of the "dangerous characters" (Boyle 144), including the narrator and his friends, "drive out to scum-and refuse-clotted Greasy Lake in search for ‘action'" (Vannatta 1636). They mistakenly make a joke…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the story is told by the narrator, he tells the reader of the time when he was young and childish. The reader can tell the narrator is mature and more educated on what the world is really like by the way he refers to himself and his friend’s lives back when they were young and the mistakes he made that night. “There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste. We were all…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Greasy Lake Symbolism

    • 1318 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The narrator starts the story saying that he and his two friends are “bad characters”. Trying to sound bad he say “When we wheeled our parents' whining station wagons out into the street we left a patch of rubber half a block long” which is not a real “bad” car, which means that in reality they are not particularly rebellious. He wants to be a rebel which some might say is corrupt and in describing greasy lake it can be compared to the youth, something that was once pure, now polluted with beer cans, contraceptives and drugs. He describes the road as a “black unbroken wall”, painting a picture for the reader of not only the journey they are about to embark on, but also that it is going to be a dreaded one.…

    • 1318 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The theme in T.C. Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” is demonstrated when the narrator and his friends learn a potentially deadly lesson through a series of accidents, caused as a result of their reckless pursuit to be bad. The nature of life reveals to them that striving to be bad in order to be viewed as hip or cool can often result in dark accidents, with catastrophic consequences. In the beginning of the story, three adolescent boys believe themselves to be “dangerous characters” (Boyle, 131) and that “it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste” (130). However, they learn painful lessons during summer vacation that reveal there will be a price to pay in trying to appear bad. They will be forced to question whether or not they are as bad as they think. The potential that there is someone worse than you needs to always be appreciated. Questions of limits and how far they must be willing to go to survive, regardless of the consequences, is a test that will be given.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the centuries, there have been an infinite amount of literary works written by a sea of authors that write a variety of genres. All of these works are precious in their own way, and even if their theme is similar to that of another, the author always ads a bit of his/her own flare in order to make said literary creation unique in some way. William Wordsworth’s “London 1802” and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Douglass”, although quite similar in form and sentence structure, do add their own flare through the use of specific details. Through the use of these devices, the speakers show their disgust for the evil deeds humans do and attempt to change them.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Greasy Lake

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Nature has a powerful way of portraying good vs. bad, which parallels to the same concept intertwined with human nature. In the story "Greasy Lake" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, the author portrays this through the use of a lake by demonstrating its significance and relationship to the characters. At one time, the Greasy Lake was something of beauty and cleanliness, but then came to be the exact opposite. Through his writing, Boyle demonstrates how the setting can be a direct reflection of the characters and the experiences they encounter.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the story opens, we are introduced to an opinionated, observant, sarcastic and hormone-driven 19-year old boy who works as a cashier in a grocery store of a small town. As he describes the store and his surroundings, the reader begins to sense Sammy’s discontentment with his mundane life when he shares his thoughts and perceptions. For example, he refers to customers as “sheep” and “house slaves”. The external conflict between Sammy and his small town’s views develops as he watches the girls maneuver their way around the store. These girls were a breath of fresh air. They were new, different and seemed to stir up some outrage and criticism. For instance, Updike writes, “A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct” (119). He even began to feel sorry for the girls as he saw “old McMahon patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints” (Updike 120). This demonstrates how Sammy began to realize how closed-minded and ordinary the town he lived in was. Another external conflict arises when Lengel, the store manager and Sunday school teacher confronts the girls about the store’s policy. In particular, Updike states, “‘we want you decently dressed when you come in here’ ” (121). Sammy resented the fact that Lengel and all the “sheep” judged the girls simply by their clothing or lack thereof. His act of quitting was to show them that they all overreacted to the situation with the girls.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three Piglet Brothers

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There was once three piglet brothers Leon, Brian, and Murphy. In this essay, I will be analyzing the short story of these three brothers. When they were very young, their parents had gotten a divorce, which forced them to become the men of the house. They had to drop out of school to provide for their single mother who was battling cancer. Leon chose the career and became an underwater welder; Brian joined the union brotherhood of carpentry and Murphy continued to remain home to tend to his mother. Six months went by, and their mother died of breast cancer, forcing them to live alone…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays