Weak Men In Greasy Lake

They were looking for their friend on the motorcycle. As the woman asked the narrator, he could not stop and think of the man he found in the lake. So why wasn't he the bad boy persona as they were the night before? This is what they were looking for? The harsh realities of being adolescente hit home. The immature state was confronted: there in front of all three of them, this was exactly what they were looking for at Greasy Lake and they couldn't commit. The agony of defeat when you realize that you are not the bad boy imagine, but just a child in a

The city, Toronto in this case, presents a web of streets and geographical space that threatens to lock its citizens in a certain demarcated way of life and conduct. The four key characters in this narrative - Tuyen, Carla, Jackie, and Oku - each feel blocked in by the constrained locality that they have been born into and each attempts to escape it in his own way.: Tuyen by being an artist, Carla by being a courier; Oku by being a student and Jackie by working in a store. The first two not only attempt to escape by means of their profession using their profession to either flee the spaces and squares (by bike) or transcend it via imagination (by art) but they also adopt profession that go against societal expectations. These societal expectations were created by, and exist within the geographical space they live in. Toronto of the late 20th century had an internalized set of expectations for immigrants and its citizens. The parents of the characters succumbed to it. The protagonists, however, resolved to step out of their boundaries and most of them succeeded.

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" by Tom Coraghessan Boyle, is the story of a group of adolescents, searching for the one situation that will proclaim them as bad boys and how their minds change. As the story begins, the narrator gives the impression that he feels he and the others boys should have taken notice of some obvious clues about themselves. These clues would have led them to the conclusion that they were far from the bad guys they wished to be. However, the oblivious teenagers ignore these obvious signs and continue in search of their goal.

T. C. Boyle uses many military and political terms from the Vietnam War to describe events in the story. In “Greasy Lake,” T.C. Boyle describes the mistake that worsened the situation ten fold:

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

“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.

When they are out being bad they like to drive to greasy lake were they can drink beer, smoke pot and howl at the stars. One night they go down to greasy lake and mistaken a car for there friend Tonys and they lay the horn and flash there high beams at it. Turns out not to be tonys car but some strangers. The stranger gets out not happy and begins to fight the gang of kids in the mist of it all the narraighter drops his keys to his car. The stranger seems to be winning the fight until the narratoir grabs a tire iron from under his seat and hits the stranger across the head with it knocking the stranger out. Then another car comes down to greasy lake unable to find the car keys the group of kids runs away into greasy lake. While the narrator is in the water he finds a dead body. The other car turns out to be the strangers friends and they wreck the group of kids car. The narratoir and his friends wait till morning for greasy lake to clear out. Once it does they head back to there car when two girls arrive asking if they seen there friend who we presume is the dead guy in the lake. They tell the two girls no, and they respond by saying how it looks like they had a rough night, and ask if they want to party with them. The narraitoir says no and they get in the car and head

Greasy Lake is described by the narrator as an aura of possessiveness and suspense to the average reader. However, while somewhat stereotypical, the narrator and his friends see the lake as the most ideal location to get together on late nights. This can be translated as the beginning of setting a scene for a location in which the adolescent youth can meet, with the reference to Bruce Springsteen’s words from a song that opens the story: “It’s about a mile down on the dark side of Route 88” (Boyle, 125). The words from the song create a scene of how the youth had essentially treated the lake as their own place. The image is further made clear when the faint island in the middle of the lake is described as “a single ravaged island a hundred yards from

The "Greasy Lake characters , Digby whose guardians paid his educational cost to Cornell; Jeff who had a risky identity; and the "wanna-be bad storyteller savor their awful kid picture "bad Boy" picture. T.C. Boyle portrays their "bad Boy" conduct: "we wore torn-up calfskin coats, slumped around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed paste and ether… " An ethical predicament happens yet is not straightforwardly uncovered, following the characters; covet an "bad Boy" picture. The essayist Boyle composes: "There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style when it was good to be bad… "

By taking the words to their dictionary definition, they mean, slimy and a place to cleanse. It is a place of maturing and growth. "Greasy Lake" is an excellent story about the transformation of the mind and spirit through encounters of the body. "Greasy Lake" also encompasses the old saying, "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."

Almost every person has experienced a “greasy lake” at some point or another. Driving around with a car full of friends on a Friday night is certainly not a new tradition for young people. For some kids, it can be as simple as stopping at the corner store for twenty dollars worth of junk food, listening to the radio at the maximum volume and talking about life. For others, it may not be that simple. There have always been youngsters like Jeff, Digby,