Analysis Of Greasy Lake By Thomas Boyle

In the 1980s, the world experienced many social changes and throughout the United States, social and foreign issues occupied the Post-Vietnam community. In Thomas Boyle’s “Greasy Lake,” he focuses his writing on the many societal issues that occupy the era in history and uses teenage experience to capture the horrors of the Vietnam war. With a New Historicist and Feminist lens, Boyle highlights the social issues of the 1980s by revealing the attitude towards the female characters and the role of the main protagonist in regard to social interactions after the Vietnam war. The 1980s marked the beginning of a new era in American history for the United States had pulled out of the Vietnam War; furthermore, Boyle takes advantage of this time period

Grace focuses his criticism on the moments leading up to the attempted rape and the female character’s initial reaction when the boys begin to confront her for she refers to the narrator and his friends as “animals.” Grace also writes that the narrator and his friends transform into “bad characters” as they begin their sexual approach on the girl and only view her as a “tainted” simply because of her actions and painted toe nails. In Grace’s criticism of this scene, he believes that it is evident that the boy’s behavior reflects the actions of “bad characters” for the boys justify their actions based on the physical appearance of the female character. Throughout the story, “bad characters” make up a majority of society and the boys aspire to reach this social status because it is viewed as normal. Grace believes that the narrator and his friends changes at this point of the story because their actions reflect “bad characters” and since “bad characters” are viewed as normal, the mistreatment of women by the “bad characters” is also viewed as normal (88). Grace’s interpretation captures the social role of women in this era of history, for when the first female character presents herself in the story, the boys immediately begin to use her as a sexual object and refer to her as a “fox” instead of an actual human. The boys word choice shows how “bad characters” mistreat and dominate women and how the mistreatment of the female character is socially