Analysis Of Tom Coraghessan Boyle's Greasy Lake

The 1950’s was a period were being rebellious and outspoken was popular for young adults. The “Greaser” was the most popular and rebellious title a young adult could have during the those times. A “Greaser” is well known by wearing a leather jacket, plain white t-shirt, tight blue jeans, and a greased up hairstyle. In Tom Coraghessan Boyle’s story “Greasy Lake”, he tells us the story of three 19 year olds trying to spend a summer night living a “Greaser” lifestyle and getting into any trouble they can find. Through series of events we see how the narrator and his two friends end up with a different mindset of how he changes towards the end of the story.
When we first begin reading what the narrator is doing it makes it seems like he is tough …show more content…
While engaging in a fight with the greaser the narrator states just how he gets ideas for his greaser persona, “I kept it there because bad characters always keep tire irons under the driver’s seat, for just such an occasion as this” ( Coraghessan Boyle 131). This shows that he isn’t as bad as he makes it seem because he gets his ideas from things he sees or hears of what “bad character” does and acts which causes him to do the same. Later once the narrator knocks the guy unconscious and after trying to rape the girl in the car he hides in the bushes around the pond as two friends of the greaser show up he comes to a realization, “ Understood, and stumbled back in horror, my mind yanked in six different directions (I was nineteen, a mere child, an infant, and here in the space of five minutes I’d struck down one greasy character and blundered into the waterlogged carcass of a second)...” (Coraghessan Boyle 133). This goes back to what he had stated about his age. About how he was nineteen and not caring about what he was doing just cause of his age and now he is regretting what he has done because he believes he is too young for this to be