Danny Boyle

Greasy Lake was a short story written by T.C. Boyle with a deeper meaning in it rather than just being a good read. The short story shows an idea of coming of age. Coming of age means to mature through events and have a different mindset. The characters go from bad boys to wanting to be good. This is due to the behavior changes of the narrator and his friends before the night, through the night, and in the morning. In the beginning of Greasy Lake, the 3 guys, Digby, Jeff, and the narrator had…

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…

grown filthy and trash filled (Boyle 1). This transformation is not unlike the characters’, they are wealthy, highly educated, and, if they wanted to be, they could be respected citizens, however, they dress in torn clothes, drink excessively, and make every attempt at “badness”. The allure of the Lake is described reverently: “We went up to the lake because everyone went there, because we wanted to snuff the rich scent of possibility on the breeze...This was nature. (Boyle 2)” The narrator’s…

Short Story Epiphanies There is a theme of epiphanies in “Greasy Lake” written by T. Coraghessan Boyle and “Cons” written by Jess Walter. The theme is very strong and prevalent in each story in their own way. In the story “Greasy Lake” there are epiphanies when the characters that they are not as bad as they would like to believe themselves be. The last short story “Cons” the main character has a very strong epiphany at the end. All the stories have strong epiphanies in all of them will be…

could also pertain to “climate and even the social, psychological, or spiritual state of the participants” (Literature, Glossary of Literary Terms, G26). The significance of setting is especially prevalent in the short story, Greasy Lake, by T.C. Boyle. Regarding the setting, though the time period is never outright mentioned it can be inferred form references used by the narrator that it is around the 1960’s when the story takes place, but this is is not the sole…

hide from the other greasy characters that were trying to hurt them by going into the lake and using it as a cover under the woods and night sky. The protagonist realizes the “dead man rotating to expose a mossy beard and eyes as cold as the moon” (Boyle 286). A man that has lived the life of evil is dead floating around the cesspool of a lake. At first, he was shocked to see a bobbing corpse so close next to him and so after he moved to a different location when he suddenly thought about him.…

create the confusion between the perception and the reality. Inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s “Spirit In The Night “, T.C. Boyle gave us an insight experience in the life of teenagers in the 1960s through his short story, “Greasy Lake”. It’s an insightful and exhilarating tale of how perception and reality play crucial roles in the teenage years. Throughout the story, T.C. Boyle elaborated how being rebellious by carrying on a crime spree and living a carefree life without realizing the…

like a taste” (Boyle 129). “Greasy Lake,” like “A&P,” presumably also takes place in the 1960s, a time when the “bad” youth subculture thrived. During this time, young folk considered their behavior to be deviant from the establishment, and felt that they were not hooligans, but rather renegades that boldly questioned societal norms. In actuality, this identity is only the facade of a group of wealthy and insecure boys who allow their parents “to pay their tuition at Cornell” (Boyle 129). The…

Greasy Lake: A Dangerous Journey to Discovery “Greasy Lake” is a chronologically written, coming of age tale, by notable author, T. Coraghessan Boyle. In this short story the reader is transported to a place and time that served as a pinnacle awakening in the lives of three nineteen year old young men. Where the reader is allowed to follow our un-named narrator and his friends through a dark journey of events that unfold one fateful summer night. The main characters, who can only be adequately…

T. C. Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” tells the story of a teenage boy who drives his mother’s Bel Air to Greasy Lake with his friends, Jeff and Digby, coming across a motorcycle and a car that they think belongs to their friend, Tony. Their descent into anarchy begins when a man that is not Tony jumps out of the car and starts fighting, winning with ease, until the protagonist knocks him out with a tire iron and believes that he is dead. The boys, acting solely on primal urges, come close to raping the…