Response To Greasy Lake By T. Coraghessan Boyle

Felt Difficulties

1) I have read that whenever Tom writes a story, he immerses his bare feet in the bowl full of chick blood under his desk. Is it true?

2) Who is the biker in the sentence, “I said nothing about the biker” (page 535).

Response to “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle T. Coraghessan Boyle is a famous American novelist. His writing usually focuses on the usual issues of society. He reflects the nature of human and the conflicts in the society in his satirical stories. Thus, most of his stories are easy to relate by people of different kinds. The story, “Greasy Lake,” is from his collection of “Greasy Lake and Other Stories (1985).” The story depicts the emotional conflicts of three adolescent boys, and expresses the situation

It is very much similar to their friend, Tony’s car. As they wanted to make fun by startling Tony, they run quickly into that car. Unfortunately, it isn’t Tony’s car as they thought. It is the car of a guy or a greasy character guy who is hanging out with his girlfriend. Since the guy and his girlfriend is making love in the car, he gets angry by the manner of the boys. So, he kicks the narrator at his face, and chips the narrator’s favorite teeth. Tom wrote this action in a witty way, “… kick of his steel-toed boot caught me under the chin, chipped my favorite tooth…” (Page 531). Here, I catch the author’s cleverness of entertaining the reader. It is if he only used the words “my tooth”, readers will not get much humorous as using the words “my favorite tooth.” So, the narrator gets really angry because his favorite tooth is chipped. It is not a regular tooth. It is his “favorite” tooth. Thus, the narrator and his friends fight seriously with the guy. When they are fighting, the narrator takes the tire iron and hit right at the guy’s head. Again, the author shows us how bravery the narrator is by revealing the only fight he had encountered when he was sixth grade. Even he was defeated by a kid with a sleep eye and two streams of mucus depending from his nostrils. This detailed picture of the kid who won over the narrator is particularly

Then, they see the girl who is only with panties and the shirt, and she runs into them and fights them. As the rebellious spirit is at high, they grab the girl’s clothing and attempt to rape her. Meanwhile, a car is approaching the lake, and they run into the muddy forest since their car key is missing. The girl cries to the men of the second car. I used men because the author wrote, “there were male voices…” (Page 533) . So, the three boys are hiding in the forest. They scare of the incest, snake and frog. The narrator is thinking sadly that the guy he hit is died. Suddenly, he loses his desire of being a bad boy. The narrator is picturing going to a funeral of the dead guy, and he is also going to jail. All of the sudden, the narrator feels creep in his spine, because the guy he thought already dead is moving. The narrator gets frighten and also happy since the guy is alive. The author described the narrator’s feeling as, “Just as quickly, my bowels turned to ice” (Page 533). It is really hilarious. When someone gets extremely excitement, he or she will have the feeling of loosing bowels. It usually happens to us when the exam period is closer. But in here, the narrator not even gets the feeling of loosing bowels, he feels as if his bowels turned to