In “Greasy Lake”, by T. Coraghessan Boyle, a group of “bad characters” get into some trouble after cruising out at night. Dominick Grace asserts that “The youths in the story are clearly rebels without much cause and without much real need for rebellion. They are clearly not the genuinely bad characters they think they are.” (Grace 2). Throughout the story they try to show that they don’t care about anything through what they wear and through their actions, but that quickly changes after they find trouble in Greasy Lake. Although it may appear that the characters in “Greasy Lake” are “bad”, I agree with Grace’s assertions, the characters aren’t bad. They aren’t bad because their physical appearance is a façade that represents a misconstrued
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They have morals of a good character, and know that they shouldn’t commit a crime, and do drugs with strangers at night. While fighting with the “greasy character” the main character says, “Rattled, I dropped it in the dirt, already envisioning the headlines, the pitted faces of the police inquisitors, the gleam of handcuffs, clank of bars, the big black shadows rising from the back of the cell… when suddenly a raw torn shriek cut through me like all the juice in all the electric chairs in the country.” (Grace 690). While looking down at the greasy character, he got frightened when he thought of the consequences of what could happen to him if he were caught, such as ending up in an electric chair in prison. Earlier in the story he said that he and his friends “struck elaborate poses to show that we didn’t give a shit about anything.” After getting into some trouble in greasy lake, they showed that they did care about ending up in prison and on the headlines. In the end of the story a couple of girls asked, “Hey, you want to party, you want to party, you want to do some of these with me and Sarah?” (Boyle 694). They were asked to do drugs and stay out late with them, but the “bad characters” rejected them because they didn’t want to get into any trouble. At the end, the narrator’s reaction is hardly one of pride, he says, “I thought I was going to cry”. Their morals matched with those of a good individual, not a bad
They have morals of a good character, and know that they shouldn’t commit a crime, and do drugs with strangers at night. While fighting with the “greasy character” the main character says, “Rattled, I dropped it in the dirt, already envisioning the headlines, the pitted faces of the police inquisitors, the gleam of handcuffs, clank of bars, the big black shadows rising from the back of the cell… when suddenly a raw torn shriek cut through me like all the juice in all the electric chairs in the country.” (Grace 690). While looking down at the greasy character, he got frightened when he thought of the consequences of what could happen to him if he were caught, such as ending up in an electric chair in prison. Earlier in the story he said that he and his friends “struck elaborate poses to show that we didn’t give a shit about anything.” After getting into some trouble in greasy lake, they showed that they did care about ending up in prison and on the headlines. In the end of the story a couple of girls asked, “Hey, you want to party, you want to party, you want to do some of these with me and Sarah?” (Boyle 694). They were asked to do drugs and stay out late with them, but the “bad characters” rejected them because they didn’t want to get into any trouble. At the end, the narrator’s reaction is hardly one of pride, he says, “I thought I was going to cry”. Their morals matched with those of a good individual, not a bad