Kay Boyle

Perfectly captured in the title, the character being the unnamed narrator of this short story “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle. This story follows the narrator though a series of unfortunate events where He and his friends Digby and Jeff attempt to exemplify the persona that they believe would be considered in accordance with a bad or “Greasy Character”. These three boys at their last teenage year as they spin there wheels in a June summer of 1960’s suburbia. Just as many small towns there…

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…

three are nineteen years old and the narrator considers them ‘bad characters.’ According to Michael Walker’s on Boyle’s ‘Greasy Lake’ and the Moral Failure of Postmodernism, “the narrator of this story is not only as old as Boyle himself, but has much the same background. Boyle, born in 1948, would have been 19 in 1967,...” so the events that the narrator goes through while may not exactly be an…

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…