Greasy Lake Essay

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Greasy Lake Essay

In the short story Greasy Lake written by T.C. Boyle, the story is about three friends who believe they are “bad”. On a particular night they go out looking for trouble, and trouble is what they find. The tone of this story is serious, dark, and very graphic. This story is full of literary devices. Metaphors and similes come thick and fast on the shores of Greasy Lake, and Boyle never contents himself with one when he can offer two or three. The comparisons for their abundance, are neither aimless nor without purpose; they enable us to see the referent from strategic points of view. For this essay I will analyze the unnamed narrator whom is the protagonist in the story. The story opens up with the narrator describing …show more content…
Afraid of who that might be and what they may have witnessed the three friends flee to the car, and then remembering the keys are lost, to the darkness of Greasy Lake. While running they could hear the screams of the girl and the greasy guy that wasn’t dead after all. The narrator dipped into the murky waters of Greasy Lake and waited and watched. The second car, was a Trans Am, and occupied by two blonds in fraternity jackets apparently friends of the greasy character. They smashed and trashed the boy’s station wagon. Nervous and scared, the narrator decided to swim for it and just at that moment he touched something in the water, something that gave way like a rubber duck, something like flesh. At that moment the narrator experienced a nasty little epiphany-the dead biker. He views the dead greasy biker as the only person worse off than himself at that moment. Is bad really the way he wanted to live? No! Did he really want to end up like that biker? No! Who was he? What happen to him? If he himself needed bridgework for his teeth after that fight and just what was he gone tell his mom about what happened to the car. Afterwards the 57’ Chevy took off then minutes later the Trans Am took off into the night. The narrator continues to rest in the murky waters contemplating his life and if he really wanted to live the life that comes with the bad territory.
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