Essay on Finding Yourself

Scott Russell Sanders’ “Under the Influence” is about a family growing up with alcoholism, mental and physical abuse. When Sanders was very young, he didn’t recognize that his father was an alcoholic, but as he grew older, he saw the bloodshot eyes, hiding alcohol, the deceptions, and the dual personalities of an alcoholic. “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” (215). Sanders story starts at the end, where his father dies from alcoholism. The turmoil and fear this family suffered because of their father’s alcoholism, is a story a lot of families are familiar with.

mother died of lung cancer. After these devastating events took place, it was a phone call from her twin sister Becka, and knowing that therapy alone or coupled with AA weren’t enough to break her physical and emotional addiction with alcohol, that

It is ironic that not only is the lake named Greasy Lake, but the individuals who hang out there are also referred to as being greasy characters as well. The 3 main characters find themselves surrounded by “dangerous” characters, and get stuck in the middle of a huge fight. As if things aren’t bad enough, the main characters then attempt to rape a girl that is with the man they just fought. Very soon after more people show up ready to join in the deviant behavior, all while in the presence of this dirty, disgusting lake. “I’d struck down one greasy character, and blundered into the waterlogged carcass of a second” (128). No matter what the main characters do, or how they react to the conflicts presented, they constantly find themselves in the presence of more greasy characters at the greasy lake.

Greasy Lake is described by the narrator in a deliberately appalling to the average reader. However, the narrator and his friends see the lake as the most favorable location to spend their days and late nights. The lake itself is described as “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.” (130) However, as the

“Greasy Lake” was published in 1985 along with other stories from the author, T. Corahessan Boyle. The story is a gripping tale of three teen boys ‘living on the edge’, in which the author presents himself and his friends as a group of dangerous individuals. One would think that the narrator has truth in his words, but all events in the story point to the contrary. T. Corahessan Boyle, or T. C. Boyle for short, is an unreliable narrator. The truth of this story is not in the text, but in the underlying meanings and subliminal nuances. This hidden reality really helps the reader make a direct judgment of the characters. After reading between the lines, one quickly finds out who the characters are, but more

The story “Greasy Lake,” by T.C. Boyle, is about a man recounting a tale from his younger days. The man and his two friends, Jeff and Digby decide to go looking for trouble, and take the narrator’s mother’s Bel Air up to the local hangout spot, Greasy Lake. They see a car that believes is their friend Tony’s and decide to harass Tony, but it happens to be not the one which caused stranger greasy guy to fight the three. Originally losing, it takes the narrator sneakily using a tire iron to beat the greasy guy. The girl gets out of the car, and when the narrator, Jeff and Digby see her, they attempt to rape her. However, they are interrupted by an approaching car, and in their guilt flee. The narrator flees into the lake where he comes across a body. He waits in the lake however, while the men that arrived in the car damage his mother’s Bel Air. Eventually they leave though, and the young men come out of hiding after a long time of waiting. They decide it’s time to go after the dead body’s friends had arrived. Boyle’s central idea is that young society does what they can to be seemed cool; however, in reality they

The title of Boyle’s short story “Greasy Lake” before I start lets quickly get introduced to the word “greasy” and how it is used during this short story. the word greasy is indicating that the persons manners or behaviors are effusively polite in a way that is felt to be insincere and repulsive. Also it is based off of Bruce Springsteen’s song “Spirit in the Night.” The lyrics “It’s about a mile down on the dark side of Route 88”. The story focuses on three nineteen-year-old men living in a time (probably the 1960’s) the authors origin and motive of this story is to show the view of his childhood and the hell that he rose in the 80’s, time period and we can relate to this type of greasy behavior today. And generations to come. The narrator says, it was good to be bad, when young

Greasy Lake is the story of three friends who are bad characters. Until they run into a situation where they question, just how bad they are. Just because they act badly and look bad does not mean they are. They are teenagers in a period, “when courtesy and winning ways [are] out of style when it [is] good to be bad, when they [cultivate] decadence like a taste.” (112) They look bad, wearing torn-up leather jackets, slouching around with toothpicks in their mouths and wearing their shades morning, noon and night. They have the attitude, they drive their parents cars fast, and burn rubber as the pull out of the driveway. They have the bad habits. They drink “gin and grape juice, Tango, Thunderbird, and Bali Hai,

“Greasy Lake is a short story written by T.C Boyle. The short story mostly focuses on three nineteen-year-old boys. The three of the boys went one night on a summer vacation in an area close to a shiny and muddy lake. The teenagers were looking for trouble on a summer evening and end of finding it. In the story at the author tells the reader, that it was a time when it was "good to be bad." But the story shows that the three boys are truly lost. The story shows the reader the changing of time in culture that these teenagers want to be a part of. Even though, they lack to leave the comforts of their upper middle class lifestyle.

The characters in “Greasy Lake” can be viewed in different lights. The narrator and his two friends, Digby and Jeff, are three mean boys whose lives seem to be centered around getting drunk and high from dusk until dawn. The narrator praises Digby and Jeff for their slick and dangerous lifestyles. Their skills consist of dancing, drinking, and “rolling a joint as compact as a Tootsie Roll Pop stick” (65) while on a bumpy drive. These characters scream trouble. They seem like harmless teenagers out to have a good time but it can be interpreted that these characters will attract mischief. After a night of bar-hopping, dancing, eating, drinking, and smoking, they decide to continue the party with a bottle of gin on the shores of broken glass and charred wood. These characters can be interpreted as young, naive, wild, reckless fools. The decisions these kids have been making the entire night have not been good ones. They have driven to bar after bar, consuming drink after drink. Obviously, their decision making is impaired. The reader should realize that the road the boys are travelling on is one that leads to a bad place. It is a place that has everything to do with Greasy Lake. It’s a place where dangerous things happen. The allegorical element that is found in the boys is

T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” deals with three young and naive teenagers who think they are invincible and hardcore characters. I know we call all relate to this feeling of being bad when we were teenagers. Staying out late, driving down the highways with our radios blaring, thinking to ourselves this is what life is all about.

In his short story “Greasy Lake,” the lake with the community teenagers create a stereotypical scene of current youth pop culture. Many youth who read this story can find the ironic references and similarities with their lifestyle in today’s world. T. Coraghessan Boyle uses the setting of the story to expose a world lacking self-discipline and showing immorality amongst a community youth, which can sometimes be rather common today. This also aids in creating an atmosphere that surrounds suspense and impaired judgement to better develop the characters of the story. Boyle is able to achieve this by creating a setting with the story of the Greasy Lake and describing the Lake as both a setting and main character.

In “Greasy Lake,” T. Coraghessan Boyle uses setting to portray the theme of the journey that one goes on to transition from childhood to adulthood. At the beginning of the short story, “greasy lake” was seen as this fun place that “bad guys” went to hangout. They smoked cigarettes, drank liquor, and gave their best attempt at finding girls. By the end of the story, it was a completely different place. The speaker found a dead body, his buddies almost raped an innocent girl, he nearly ruined

The journalist Amy, was torn as someone who was both a journalist, somebody who had to be skeptical when taking into account the story of the French doctor, and as somebody who had personally witnessed the effects of alcohol on a loved one in a past relationship, she wanted to believe in a cure or a treatment that could resolve the addiction issue associated with alcohol use. She wanted there to be a treatment for this wide-spread issue that plagued lots of people, but she also had to be skeptical as professional, because she was a journalist.

John Locke believed, the enduring self is defined by a person’s memory. With memory there is an enduring self, and without it there is no self at all. I believe there is an enduring self, but it is a little more complicated than that. Even if a person encounters a dramatic change to his/her life, they are still the same self, the same person. I believe memory is not the only factor that defines the self. Many things form this enduring self, and these things work together to form an identity, to form who you are now. These things are your memories, your experiences and your personality. You may change and grow over time as you are exposed to new experiences, but under it all you are still ....you. But is a