Key Elements In Greasy Lake

Every good story revolves around key elements: Setting, Narrative point of view, Style, and Tone. In the story “Greasy Lake”, the setting primarily revolves around Greasy Lake, a parking lot next to a body of water really. However, its original and present condition plays an important part in shaping the story.
The story itself does not give a specified period of time. However, as one pays attention to the small details that are included throughout the story, you can get an overall feel that the timeline is set on the early 70’s. For example, there is a reference to a musical group called Toots & the Maytals, who were a reggae group that became popular in the early 1970s. One great indicator of the specific time period is that first sentence

We learn that in the lake was originally named “Wakan” by the Indians, “a reference to the clarity of its waters” (365). According to Wikipedia, Wakan means "powerful" or "sacred" in the Lakota language. It was an area that initially was beautiful, serene, and almost magical. It may have originally been a place where one could have come to reflect, dream and relax on the banks by the peaceful water. However, in the present day setting of the story, Greasy Lake is nothing more than “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” (365). It was the perfect place for mischief-makers to go hang out, hook up and cause trouble. It became the exact opposite of what Greasy Lake was like

As the narrator is lying in the murky water he starts to think about: “fog on the lake, insects chirring eerily and felt a tug of fear, felt the darkness opening up inside me like a set of jaws.” (371). You can see how the thought process made the narrator see and fear what he was becoming, possibly by being in the water next to the dead man he could see himself in that same position, dead somewhere if he did not change his ways. Later as you read further, the narrator states: “I pushed myself up from the mud and stepped out in to the open…everything was still. This was nature.” (371). It is almost like we as the readers get to see the rebirth of the narrator into a new, possible better individual. As is the murky water cleanses his soul and awakens a new being inside the