Greasy Lake Essay

Every individual goes through a phase in life where he or she pretends to be something that he or she is not. By creating an image for themselves that they cannot obtain, may cause them to become involved in a certain situation that they are not capable of fulfilling. In T.C. Boyle’s short story “Greasy Lake,” three teenagers go around looking for the one situation that will proclaim them as bad boys, but little did they know of the situation that they would run into later that night; would change the way they viewed the image that they were putting on. The narrator, at the beginning of the story, believed himself and friends to be dangerous. He even said, “It was good to be bad.”(CITE) In “Greasy Lake,” T.C. Boyle uses setting, symbolism, and theme to discover the true identity behind the three main characters. …show more content…
Boyle creates Greasy Lake with a dark, run-down setting, which makes it clear to the readers that something bad is going to happen. For instance Boyle stated that Greasy Lake was “now fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires.” He also went on to say that “it looked as if the air force had strafed it.”(Cite) Although “Greasy Lake,” was published in 1985, Boyle describes the characters nin more of a 1960’s setting. “These young men of privilege think about rebelling but are unwilling to give up the safety and security of their white, suburban life (Cite).” (Finish