Greasy Lake Compare to a&P Essay

This story is about a guy names Ponyboy who is a “greaser”, a member of a group of lower-class youths who wear their hair long and greasy, wear jeans and ripped-up T-shirt, and are at odds with the rich-kid bullies known as the “Socs”, shorter name for socials. One day, as Ponyboy is walking home from a movie, he is jumper and beaten by a gang of Socs. At the last minute, his gang of greasers (including his brothers Darry and Sodapop, who raised Ponyboy now that their parents are dead,) the hardened hood Dally

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.

The discovery of the biker’s body is the turning point in not only the story, but also in the narrator’s life. In a short time, he has been beaten, has knocked out someone with a tire iron, almost raped a woman, found a dead body, and watched his mother’s Bel Air station wagon be destroyed. Which was all done for the rush of excitement. While hiding in the water that was previously seen as a tarn of doom, with all the nights occurrences spinning in his head, he has an epiphany. Standing there he realizes what becomes of “tough-guys” and discovers that he has found his salvation within his true self. Accordingly, as the narrator emerges from Greasy Lake, he is a new person with a newly discovered perspective. As the sun is rising and the songs of birds replace the sounds of crickets, he leaves the pool of once dismal waters (Boyle 118). This signals his rebirth and his baptism as a reformed adolescent.

In T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “Greasy Lake,” there are many subtle historical references. These references pertain to different events that were happening during the time period that the story takes place, and help to describe different parts of the plot. Casual readers may not even notice these interesting little bits of information, but upon paying closer attention; they would become aware of the small, almost unnecessary references that make this story so fascinating.

Both stories delve into the unstable psyche of a young man who is faced with one of life's most difficult lessons: that things are not always as they appear to be. Telling the tale as a way of looking back on his life, the protagonist allows the reader to follow his life's lessons as they are learned, imparting upon the audience all the emotional pain and suffering endured for each one. The primary focal point is the young man's love for a completely unattainable girl who unknowingly riles the man into such a sexual and emotional frenzy that he begins to confuse "sexual impulses for those of honor and chivalry" (Wells, 1993, p. 127). It is this very situation of self-deception upon which both stories concentrate that brings the young man to his emotional knees as he is forced to "compensate for the emptiness and longing in the young boy's life" (Norris 309). As much as Updike's rendition is different from Joyce's original work, the two pieces are as closely related as any literary writings can be. Specifically addressing details, it can be argued that Updike missed no opportunity to fashion A & P as much after Araby as possible. For example, one aspect of womanhood that fascinates and intrigues both young men is the whiteness of the girls' skin. This explicit detail is not to be taken lightly in either piece, for the implication is integral to the other important story elements, particularly as they deal with female obsession. Focusing

Both short stories have the same initial motive behind them which is getting a girls attention which is almost seamlessly impossible in the kid’s eyes to do. Sammy and Jimmy both epically fail while trying to get the girls attention. The epiphany in A&P is when Sammy realizes how dumb of a mistake he made by quitting his job and because of his dumb decision his life is going to get a lot harder. Jimmy on the other hand realizes his epiphany when he figured out that he wasn’t going to be able to get Mangen’s sister anything and his stay at the bazaar was now useless. Although each short story has a completely

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

“Greasy Lake” by T. C. Bolyle narrated from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, told as a reflective account of his youth. In the story, he recounts details of his experiences on a summer evening with two friends. The reader experiences the misadventures of the protagonist that night along as told from the viewpoint of the now mature narrators retrospective. Exposed in the story are two character traits of the protagonist. Those traits are immaturity and rebellion, along with the trait of introspection on the part of the narrator.

These two stories have few things in common that can be described in a way that

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.

The characters were typical greasers in the 1960’s-1980’s; they partied, they caused trouble, they had no conscious. As in We Real Cool these boys always looked for a good time, they thought it was cool to be bad. They went to the greasy lake to hang out; they stumbled upon what appeared to be a friend’s car rocking back and forth. The boys attempt a prank, unfortunately this isn’t their friend, and it is a random stranger whom they’ve upset. This results in a fight ultimately knocking out or killing the stranger. After the fight, the stranger’s girl is attacked by the boys resulting in attempted rape. The boys are confronted by a new car arriving in the greasy lake parking lot; the people in the new car destroy the boy’s car. During the events at the greasy lake the characters make the following bad decisions: they start a fight: potentially kill a person: attempt to gang rape a girl; this shows that the characters are not mature and are not thinking clearly. In the end the boys decide to stop partying and go home after they are tempted by drunken girls. They show that because of what they had just gone through they do not want to continue the lifestyle they have. The boys exhibit an adult decision and a life lesson that was learned the hard way. They confronted heir demons and

Stories may be different, but they all have at least one thing in common. Whether they have the same theme or not, all stories are drawn together by interesting topics to keep the reader’s attention. The three short stories used in this comparison are “Killings” by Andres Dubus, “Cons” by Jess Walter and “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Although written by different authors all stories deal with killings and death.

A family of three moves into a new town after the parents gets a divorce. After moving to a new town the mother, Mary, marries a new man she meets named, Jack. Jack who likes others to call him “The King” is an alcoholic who gets drunk often and beats on the little defenseless Bobby. Bobby and Mike, who look about 8 and 10, are reluctant to tell anyone about the abuse after seeing how their mother has found happiness at last. Through the chaos and traumatic experience, they try to avoid the stepfather by exploring and having adventures around town. In the process of exploring and having adventures, the two brothers devise a plan to build a plane for Bobby to escape the child abuse. Marveled by an urban legend of a boy named Fisher, the two boys modify the Radio Flyer toy wagon using anything they can find into a real plane. At the end, the little brother Bobby flies away in the plane to escape the abuse and never to return again.