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Character development introduction
Essay examples for character development
Important of young adults literature
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T. Coraghessan Boyle is the author of Greasy Lake. Boyle was born in 1948 in Peekskill, New York, son of Irish immigrants. Mr. Boyle’s character, which is the narrator, corresponds to who he was during his young years. He was a privileged college kid as he recalls, “as a sort of pampered punk”. He later on became a high school teacher for quite some years, while he studied in the University of Iowa processing stories for his PH.D. He has recently published four novels and was quickly noticed due to the vast reflection of his idiosyncratic ideas. The unnamed character/narrator in Greasy Lake is Boyle himself looking back on his youth. Boyle and his two friends Digby and Jess play out to be bad characters, but only to miss their life in the suburbs …show more content…
Throughout the story “Greasy Lake” the three young men are looking for a sense of rush to make them feel like the atrocious characters they desperately want to be. They just finished their first year of college, and the young men are restless to begin an adventure. It was on the third night of the summer that they spent cruising looking for trouble, eventually causing them to head out to Greasy Lake. The story “Greasy Lake” shows why people are common to hang around there by stating, “we went up to the lake because everyone went there, because we wanted to snuff the rich sent of possibility on the breeze, watch a girl take off her clothes and plunge into the festering murk, drink beer, smoke pot, howl at the stars, savor the incongruous full-throated roar of rock and roll against the primeval susurrus of frogs and crickets” (Boyle, 129). The narrator explains the reason why every bad character goes to Greasy Lake. The three young men don’t just want to just be bad characters, but they want to look the part. In the story “Greasy Lake” the author clearly allows the reader to know who they look up to. “We read Andre Gide and struck elaborate poses to show that we didn’t give a shit about anything” (Boyle, 129). This explains how they idolize the author Andre Gide, who shares his own experiences as a teenager in the 1950s. This sums up his actions and how he is trying to be seen as bad by pointing out he’s nineteen and bad to get …show more content…
The story reveals how the narrator describes himself and his friends. In the story “Greasy Lake” the narrator says, “We wore torn-up leather jackets, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine” (Boyle, 129). This explains the characters they portray to be but in reality are not due to the correction he gives in the end. While they are still playing out as bad characters they find themselves in a troubled situation that was supposed to be a joke. They flash the headlight to a car who they think is Tony’s. They notice immediately that it is not their friend’s car and end up picking a fight with a guy who was with his girlfriend. They narrator and his friends are taking a beating and the narrator decides to get a tire iron and smacks the man knocking him out cold on the floor. In the story “Greasy Lake” explains how they felt, “Motherfucker’, he spat, over and over, and I was aware in that instant that all four of us- Digby, Jeff, and myself included- were chanting ‘motherfucker, motherfucker, ‘as if it were a battle cry” (Boyle, 131). This describes how intimidating they feel by leaving the man in the floor but the narrator explains how terrified he actually was to do that. The girlfriend starts bashing at them and trying to hit them with
In the beginning we find the family and its surrogate son, Homer, enjoying the fruits of the summer. Homer wakes to find Mrs. Thyme sitting alone, “looking out across the flat blue stillness of the lake”(48). This gives us a sense of the calm, eternal feeling the lake presents and of Mrs. Thyme’s appreciation of it. Later, Fred and Homer wildly drive the motor boat around the lake, exerting their boyish enthusiasm. The lake is unaffected by the raucous fun and Homer is pleased to return to shore and his thoughts of Sandra. Our protagonist observes the object of his affection, as she interacts with the lake, lazily resting in the sun. The lake provides the constant, that which has always been and will always be. As in summers past, the preacher gives his annual sermon about the end of summer and a prayer that they shall all meet again. Afterward, Homer and Fred take a final turn around the lake only to see a girl who reminds Homer of Sandra. “And there was something in the way that she raised her arm which, when added to the distant impression of her fullness, beauty, youth, filled him with longing as their boat moved inexorably past…and she disappeared behind a crop of trees.
This one night at Greasy Lake wasn’t as typical as the other nights. A series of events happen at Greasy Lake that would change the narrator character after all. First after just throwing “two dozen raw eggs at mailboxes and hitchhikers” (par 4) the narrator friend Digby decides to play a practical joke on, what looks like someone he knows car, by leaning on the horn and turning the high beams on to t...
In the essay “Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White, uses diction and syntax to reveal the main character’s attitude towards the lake in Maine. He has an uncertain attitude towards the lake throughout the essay because he is unsure of who he is between him and his son. On the ride there White, pondering, remembering old memories, keeps wondering if the lake is going to be the same warm place as it was when he was a kid. The lake is not just an ordinary lake to White, it’s a holy spot, a spot where he grew up every summer. “I wondered how time would have marred this unique, this holy spot-the coves and streams, the hills that the sun set behind, the camps and the paths behind the camps” (29). White’s diction and syntax
There are many writers that write poems and books with the same styles. This essay will compare the styles of Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle and the fictional Pet Fly by Walter Mosley.
The narrator in “Greasy Lake” does not know what bad means until his own “badness” is put to the test in the real world. From his experience, Sammy learns that he will...
The narrator and his friends in “Greasy Lake” tries to make themselves look like rebels. They wanted to appear to be bad to everyone around them. Boyle writes “We were all dangerous characters then. We wore torn up leather jackets, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine” (529). The narrator and his friends also did many other things to produce the effect of being cool and intimidating. In the end of the story the narrator and his friends have the chance to keep up their false bad guy image; however they decides to choose a higher road.
In order to better understand the premises of the story a short summary is needed to get to know the narrator better. The protagonist, although not named tries to enjoy his summer with two of his friends Jeff and Digby by being rebels. Initially looking for trouble, they ride around from place to place using the protagonist’s parents’ borrowed car. They go looking for trouble at a place called Greasy Lake where they mistake a car for their friend’s car and try interrupt him while getting busy with a lady. When they interrupt the couple in the car, they find out that their friend Tony wasn’t in there, but a stranger, a real “badass”, their foil, was interrupted who proceeds to beat down the protagonist and his two friends. Out of rash thinking he hits the “badass” in the head with a tire iron just enough to knock him out. Once he is down the protagonist and his friends try to ravage the “foxy” lady the re...
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...
“The greatest devastation occurred, however, along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee. There, the 10 feet surge washed over the lake’s 5-8 feet dikes and flooded an area 75 miles wide” (Hurricanes: Science and Society). The most prominent similarity between the event described in the book and the event in reality, is the fact that the dikes surrounding Lake Okeechobee burst causing the lake to rapidly burgeon. Janie and Tea Cake walk through the rainwaters and as they are escaping for higher ground, they turn around and see the inexorable lake rushing towards them, destroying everything in its path. “The lake was coming on. Slower and wider, but coming. It had trampled on most of its supporting wall and lowered its front by spreading. But it came muttering and grumbling onward like a tired mammoth just the same” (pg. 163). Hurston describes the lake using personification, acting as if the large body of water is a monster. With this literary device, she incorporates the point of view of the victims, who saw the lake as a significant bane of the storm.
Greasers are the lowest of society and deserve whatever they get for being a Greaser nor do they deserve any chance to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and judgement and become anything but a Greaser. None of these beliefs are true, but society believes them to be true. Though it is true that many Greasers give up and conform to society’s expectations, who can blame them? In a society that will never accept them, why should they bother? However, Darrel Curtis, a Greaser, refuses to believe in his inherent “lack of worth” as a Greaser, unlike many of his friends and family. He is equal to or better than most Socs, and people can see it, yet few believe it and even fewer choose to make any note of it. The few people who take note of it, his family and a very select few, note that had he been born under slightly different circumstances such as not being born poor and had his parents not die, he could have been a Soc, gone to college and succeeded at life. Darry should have had a future regardless of his lack of socioeconomic status because of his considerable intelligence, hardwork and
If this story was told in a woman’s point of view, the entire story would change since it would be more of the girl’s journey from her home, her thoughts on the boy and the “procedure” she would follow and behavior she would exhibit in front of the boy. He uses casual diction in his story such as: “Wait and after an hour go out to your corner. The neighborhood is full of traffic. Give one of your boys a shout and when he says, Are you still waiting on that bitch? Say, Hell yeah.” He uses this form to express how close he is to his friends as well as the type of language they use with each other. It also depicts that he is from the
Both the Socs and the Greasers deal with the struggle of being Judged by others.In the text from Outsiders it says “I am a greaser.I am a JD and a hood.I blacken the name of our fair city.I beat up people.I rob gas stations.I am a menace to society man do I have fun. This shows that Steve thinks they are getting judged for these reasons.As a result he is getting Judged because he is a hood and is a menace to society and has fun while doing those things.In the text from cool at 13, adrift at 23 it says “They are doing more extreme things to act cool, like bragging about drinking 3 six pack of beer on a Saturday nigh.”This shows that they are to extreme stuff to act cool in front of their peers. As a result they are bragging about drinking 3 six packs of beer on a Saturday night.In conclusion they are getting judged on how they act, what they are known to do and how the speak to their peers.
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.
Boyle, Coraghessan. "The Love of My Life." Making Literature Matter. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2012. 55669. Print.
First, White uses imagery throughout his essay to create an effective visual of his experiences at the lake. To start his essay, White reflects on his childhood memories of the lake when he and his family visited every summer: “I remembered clearest of all the early morning, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and the wet woods whose scent entered the screen.” This passage enhances