In the short story Greasy Lake, Boyle told of the changing of boys to men in one night. When it was cool to be bad. Senior year in high school, 19 years old and stupid. Not having any real clue as to the real world works, Driving mom's cars using dad's money. In Greasy Lake, T.C. Boyle used the theme of being bad by using the different characters to symbolize someone always trying to be more than they really are.
The biggest problem with being "bad" is the person on top always has someone wanting to knock him/her off his or her thrown. T.C. Boyle painted the picture nicely, "able to manage a ford with lousy shocks over a rutted and gutted blacktop road at 85 while rolling a joint." This clearly paints a picture of the three characters as not being part of the choir group. In T.C's statement "Digby wore a gold star in his right ear" gives us the rebellion youth disobeying his parents wishes for a clean-cut young man. Then states "and allowed his father to pay his tuition to Cornell" shows us he isn't as bad as Digby imagines himself.
In Greasy Lake the...
“Greasy Lake" by Tom Coraghessan Boyle, is the story of a group of adolescents, searching for the one situation that will proclaim them as bad boys and how their minds change. As the story begins, the narrator gives the impression that he feels he and the others boys should have taken notice of some obvious clues about themselves. These clues would have led them to the conclusion that they were far from the bad guys they wished to be. However, the oblivious teenagers ignore these obvious signs and continue in search of their goal.
It all started in the summer when Bobby, an overweight fifteen year old is embarrassed to take his clothes off and swim in the beach because he is embarrassed that people would make fun of his wobbly legs and stomach, yet that isn't the his worst fear. He had taken swimming lessons the last summer, but quit because he started to gain a lot of weight. He tries to ignore the nasty remarks people say about him, but they stay in his mind. He can sort of ignore it because his best friend, Joanie has the ugliest nose on the face of the earth, but she doesn't care a bit about what other people think, which makes her Bobby's mentor, kind of.
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” is a timeless tale that will leave you on the edge of your seat if it was a movie, but in this case this short story will have your eyes glued to the page. We will discover Boyle’s arrangement of incidents in this story 's as he explains the plot from the beginning that talks about “ There was a time “ which clearly states that this story was a flashback of his pass. This story takes place in 1985 when the narrator who is also Boyle was nineteen year old. This is a story of revelation. Walker states “The passage of the protagonist from water to land, and from night to morning, parallels his passage from ignorance to knowledge, from chaos to order, from naiveté to understanding. (Qtd Walker 247-255)“The
Water is a powerful medium for introspection. This truth is evident in the short story, 'Greasy Lake,' by T. Coraghessan Boyle. In this story, water serves as a catalyst for self-reflection, as it propels the protagonist into a certain degree of conflict, and ultimately works to reveal and confront the character?s inner struggle.
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
Greasy Lake is the story of three friends who are bad characters. Until they run into a situation where they question, just how bad they are. Just because they act badly and look bad does not mean they are. They are teenagers in a period, “when courtesy and winning ways [are] out of style when it [is] good to be bad, when they [cultivate] decadence like a taste.” (112) They look bad, wearing torn-up leather jackets, slouching around with toothpicks in their mouths and wearing their shades morning, noon and night. They have the attitude, they drive their parents cars fast, and burn rubber as the pull out of the driveway. They have the bad habits. They drink “gin and grape juice, Tango, Thunderbird, and Bali Hai, [sniff] glue, and ether and what somebody [claims] [is] cocaine.”(112) What starts out as a harmless prank on the third night of their summer vacation turns into a situation where they get into a fight, attempt to rape a girl, find a dead body and see first hand the destruction a bad character can do to an automobile.
The book takes place in the great depression where power was everything and if you were weak you were killed off by the strong so that they could survive. The characters understood this and tried to appear stronger and more powerful than each other to get by. Curly fights larger men, to appear strong. Crook threatens Lennie with the thought that George will leave him, and this is meant to scare him because Lennie has a special relationship with George that is irreplaceable. Carlson shoots Candy’s dog to show masculinity in a way and strip Candy of the one thing he really loves. And Curley's wife threatens to hang crooks to prove that even though she is a woman she still has a voice on the farm.
The story is short and relies on a simple plot, involving violence and a series of climaxes to sustain the intensity of emotion right up to the end. The events that take place herd the narrator to an epiphany that he doesn't necessarily want, but knows is inevitable anyway. First the barhopping and partying symbolize the fruitless search, for that special something, but instead leads him to his last resort, Greasy Lake. Next, a simple case of mistaken identity will spiral out of control into an act of desperation with a tire iron followed by an attempted rape. As he runs for his life into the lake the tension mounts to a fevered pitch when he comes face to face with a dead body in the lake. .".. Stumbled back in horror and revulsion, my mind yanked in six different directions (I was nineteen, a mere child, an infant, and here in the space of minutes I'd struck down one greasy character and blundered into the water- logged carcass of a second."(149) Here, the narrator has his epiphany, that he isn't a "bad character" after all. As he ponders these things the thugs take their frust...
For example, the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons represent a class higher than Jim 's because of their skin tone. However, they appear to be more irresponsible and less compassionate than him in their senseless war with one another. The Duke and the King also are considered better than Jim in both classism and racism ideologies, and yet are two of the least trustworthy and ethical characters in the entire book. After stealing, deceiving, and manipulating entire towns, the Duke and the King establish themselves as villainous people, as opposed to the respectable men they ought to
Have you ever felt judged or marginalized only because of the situation you were born in?Having to walk on the street wondering if you’re safe. Have you ever been the one that gets made fun of? The laughing stock? The uncool one? The one with the bad luck? In S.E Hinton's The Outsiders, the Greasers are all of those things. It’s a dark world they live in but they have no choice. Although the narrator, Ponyboy, may not lead the best life, he still tries to make the most of it. Heroism, social class and survival are some of the most transcendent themes demonstrated in S.E Hinton’s The Outsiders.
Greasers were the lowest among the society. The society had negative thoughts towards Greasers, because there were not many things people expected from the Greasers other than doing bad things such as stealing, having rumble, and other bad things that happened around the society. Not every Greaser does bad things, however, the Greasers took the blame for anything bad even if it was the Socs fault. It is because everyone expected the Greasers to do bad things instead of the Socs. Even though the Greasers had a bad reputation, they didn’t care, but instead they enjoyed their lives. Sometimes the Greasers do bad things but only for fun and because it was the society’s expectations. If the Greasers did something good, no one would expect or believe the Greasers did it. No one would ever expect the Greasers to be heroes, just like the man whose kids were saved by Johnny, Ponyboy, and Dallas. “’Mrs. O’Briant and I think you were sent straight from heaven. Or are you just professional heroes or something?’ Sent from heaven? Had he gotten look at Dallas? ‘No, we’re greasers.’” (Page...
In literature, power struggles are an effective way to illustrate themes. In engaging in a power struggle with Tom and the society of old money, Jay Gatsby illustrates The Great Gatsby’s theme of the hollowness of the upper class, or in this case old money.
In chapter one we are introduced to our narrator, Ponyboy. Ponyboy is raised by his two older brothers Darry and Soda. They’re all apart of a gang called the “greasers” which is joined by Dally, Johnny, Two-bit, and Steve. There is another group called “ socs” which stands for socials, and everyone in that group is very wealthy. One day Ponyboy got jumped by a socs group, but luckily Darry was there to help before anything too serious happened. The first element of literature is characterization. Ponyboy is a keen observer, trying to make sense of the complexities of those around him. At the beginning of the story, he stops and spends several pages giving us brief character description on Steve, Two-Bit, Dally, and Johnny. This is also known as direct characterization. He tells us that Steve is "cocky and smart" ( Hinton 9). Two-Bit can 't stop joking around and goes to school for "kicks" (Hinton 10) rather than to learn. Dallas, he says, is "tougher, colder, meaner" ( Hinton 10) than the rest of them.
Johnny and Dally are both very contrasting characters and each play a vital role in both the novel and Ponyboy’s life. Johnny is a soft character who is regarded as the stereotypical Greaser. Dally is a rugged and rough character that is regarded as a hoodlum. Therefore, I believe that this paper has been able to answer the topic question and also support my thesis.
Once Brown enters the forest he meets the devil, who resembles his father. The representation of his father as the devil symbolizes that even Browns own blood is evil, and that everyone has some evil inside themselves. It shoes how far back evil goes, and that...