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Greasy Lake Symbolism

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“Greasy Lake” is about the idea of being free spirited and having the young freedom to feel energetic and do whatever comes to mind, including rebellion. This story is about a journey in experiencing risk taking and learning from ones mistakes. In the story, the narrator describes their trip to Greasy Lake as an adventure that started off with a group of friends having fun to the situation escalating into something dangerous. The narrator says, “I was terrified. Blood was beating in my ears, my hands were shaking, my heart turning over like a dirt bike in the wrong gear” (Boyle 307). The quote from the text can state that the narrator is experiencing a result of a risk taking event that potentially led this circumstance of him being in a threatening …show more content…

One was when the friends and the narrator all ran back to the car and were ready to leave but the two girls were asking about the dead body found, Al. The narrator said that all he wanted to do was go home to his parents and go to bed. This type of behavior is completely different than the behavior the readers seen earlier in the short story. A typical bad boy would probably just brush the incident off or think that being chased, seeing a dead body and almost being killed was “cool”. However, the narrator stated that he wanted to go to his parent’s house instead. The house of a parent is welcoming and warm, the narrator wanted to feel safe in his moment of weakness. Another notable change in the character of the narrator is when the two girls ask if the boys wanted to party and the narrator said, “I just looked at her, I thought I was going to cry” (Boyle 310). This is important because if the narrator is as much of a bad boy as he claimed to be before the incident happened, he, along with his friends, would have token up that offer and partied with the girls regardless of what they just had experienced. They would not have drove off the chance they got. The narrator had the opportunity to live the life he has been living by joining those girls, be he decided to take the

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