Analysis Of Greasy Lake By T. Coraghessan Boyle

The hierarchy of human nature, starts from infancy, to adolescence and finally ends in the adult stage. However as easy as it may seem, transitioning to adulthood is not an easy ride because at the adolescence stage, humans seems to be more sensitive and influenced. At this point in time, they are trying to create an image, personality or character for themselves, and sometimes this might lead them to make a wrong decision. “Greasy Lake,” by T. Coraghessan Boyle, an American novelist and short story writer, portrays the life of three teenagers passing through this phase. In this story, the narrator and his two friends, Jeff and Digby, are being seen shifting from being boys to men in one night. The narrator, describes themselves as being “dangerous

In the setting of this story, these three teenagers are seen living in a society that “cultivated decadence like a taste” (Boyle 687). Therefore, their choice of being bad or dangerous is as a result of the degrading value of morals that encompasses their environment. The narrator says, “We wore torn-up jackets….sniffed glue and ether what somebody claimed was cocaine” (Boyle 687). This shows that they also abuse drugs. He goes further to narrate, “We drank gin….Tango, Thunderbird, and Bali Hai” (Boyle 687). For these three friends, this is the epitome of feeling matured. Their taking in of illegal substances means that they really want to become adults, however, they are approaching it from a wrong

First of those epiphany is his visualization of “the headlines….handcuffs, clanks of bars, the black shadow rising from the back of the cell” (Boyle, 690). Still in this process of brain recess, another epiphany kicks in when he sees a dead body emerging from the lake, which he recounts as “something unspeakable, obscene, soft, wet, and moss-grown” (Boyle, 691). The dead man is a representation of what might happen to the narrator, if he did not change his lifestyle. Who knew why he ended up in Greasy Lake? He is assumed to be the owner of a motorcycle the narrator saw earlier, which labels him to be some sought of rebel or badass type of a person. Maybe he got into a fight so serious and he is murdered, nobody knows. However, the sight of this carcass or the possible imagination of what happened to him left one honest impression or virtue in the life of the narrator. The narrator begins to realize how imprudent and irresponsible he is. At one point he contemplates suicide, but realizes “the dead man is the only person on the planet worse off than I was,” he said (Boyle, 693). The narrator’s experience tonight proves that his careless actions will place him in a position that will likely end up destroying him. Watching and hearing his mother’s car being beaten and destroyed, and seeing the dents on this Bel Air are a reflection of his mistakes and errors in his existing