Water in T. Coraghessan Boyle's Greasy Lake Essay

Tim Winton’s short story, ‘The Water Was Dark and it Went Forever Down’, depicts a nameless, adolescent girl who is battling the voices inside her head along with the powerful punishments at the hands of her inebriated mother. The key concerns of life and death are portrayed through the girl’s viewpoint as she compares her life with her sad, depressed mother. Anonymous as she is, the girl constantly makes an attempt to escape the outbursts, that come as a result to her mother’s drinking, by submerging herself into the water. An extended metaphor is used when expressing the girl as a machine and her will to continue surviving in her sombre life.

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” 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

There are many people in this world that can prove that our past experiences contribute to the shaping of our present day selves and lives. Whether our past contains hidden skeletons in our closets or not, we cannot keep it a secret nor can we run from it. But if we decide to do so the past will only come to haunt us. In the novel In The Lake of the Woods, we see that there is a fine line between love and insanity. And John Wade –the antihero of the story- is drifting on the border line. One day, John awakens to find Kathy Wade, the love of his life and wife, gone without a trace along with the boat. Although author Tim O'Brien presents us with many theories for her

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

At the beginning of Le Thi Diem Thuy’s novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For, water provides a refuge to the narrator and her family by functioning as a pathway to a new and secured life. This water signifies a new beginning and becomes a dwelling place where the narrator retreats when searching for answers. As the narrator progresses in the story, her understanding of life also develops, and water in the story becomes a barrier; it never truly provides the answers or fixes the issues that engulf the narrator’s family like a surf on the beach. Instead, the water reflects the traumatic reality within the narrator’s life, whether she realizes it or not. Essentially, in The Gangster We Are All Looking For, water functions as a pathway and a barrier which illuminate the trauma that the narrator and her family experience in their lives after Vietnam’s colonization.

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,

Sudden and Ironic events that happen to the narrator in T.C. Boyle’s short story “Greasy Lake” are the same type of events that in an instant will change a person forever. The ironic circumstances that the narrator in “Greasy Lake” finds himself in are the same circumstances that young people find themselves in when fighting war.

On the lower end of the social spectrum in Hinton’s novel is the community known as the greasers. The “greasers”, a term which arises from their overuse of hair grease, are a community of people who are thought to be “victims of the environment” and underprivileged people. The community is made up of many different people

James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the

“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

Additionally we see his rebelliousness, targeted at what he views as a life that is normal and boring. He rebels by dressing in punk style clothes, paid for by his parents.he read’s book’s by author such as André Gide (Boyle, 115) who was noted for works that explored conflict and rebellion. His behaviors and those of his friends are used to set themself’s outside of society , to be perceived as rebels .With their use of drugs ,drinking, cruising all night long and gliding off to the hoped for glory of Greasy Lake.They strike a pose of teenage rebellion ,all paid for by their parents. By being” expert in the social graces” (Boyle, 115) they are “slick and quick” (Boyle, 115) in an rebellious stand against what their parents want for them

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.