“Greasy Lake”: Everybody Seems to Swim In It
“Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyles tells a story about a group of young adults looking for their chance to be proclaimed “tough guys”. The young adults get their mom’s car and decide to go out to the place called “Greasy Lake”. The lake that use to be a clean lake, was now a hangout place for young adults. The boys had some liquor, pot, and a mission to complete. They were destined to be them crazy “bad guys”. Needless to say their night ends up being a learning experience and the come home different people. Most young adults have to learn some lessons the hard way. Almost, all situations in life are learned by someone’s trial and error. The “Greasy Lake” is a story whose symbols support the main theme: the lake itself represents the boy’s character, losing the keys represent them losing their innocence, and Al’s body represented the results of being “bad guys”.
The lake is one symbol that helps illustrate the theme of this story. “The Indians had called it Wakan, a reference to the clarity of its waters” (573). The lake is used in the story to symbolize the narrator’s moral condition. “Greasy Lake was once known for the clarity of its waters but now its fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” (Grace). What imagery probably stuck in my head the most was "there was a single ravaged island a hundred yards from shore, so stripped of vegetation it looked as if air force had strafed it." as Boyle put it. Throughout the years the lake turned into a party place where wild teens went to drink, smoke pot, and cause trouble. The characters go to “Greasy Lake” because everybody goes there. They wanted to experience the remot...
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... the narrator truly wants to leave “Greasy Lake” because he sees the simple appearance of keys as something precious. This could also be symbolic of the narrator wanting to get away from the person he was trying to be. The biggest sign of the narrator’s character change is when they meet the girls that are looking for Al. These girls ask the guys if they want to party and do drugs. At the beginning of the story, the “bad” guys would have been all about it. It took that crazy, scary, life changing event to make those “bad guys” realize they really were not that “bad”!
Works Cited
Grace, Dominick. “Literary contexts in Short Stories: T.C. Boyle’s “Greasy Lake.” 2006:1-1 Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. Web.28 June 2007.
Vannatta, Dennis “Greasy Lake.” Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition, 2004 MagillOnLiterature Plus. Web. 8 April 2006
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