Greasy Lake a Character Analysis of \"Greasy

Greasy Lake

A Character Analysis of "Greasy Lake"

The nameless narrator of "Greasy Lake" admits in the first paragraph that he wants to be bad -- that, indeed, it is "good" to be bad. The contradiction is telling T.C. Boyle's young, teenage Everyman in "Greasy Lake" is a confused adolescent pretending to be something he is not: something legendary, mythical, hyper-real, and above the law. What unfolds in the telling is the restoration of reality as the three "baddies," the narrator, Digby and Jeff, all fall prey to their own delusions of grandeur and are accordingly reduced to the boys that they are, afraid, ashamed, and perhaps one reflection closer to leaving the life of the ne'er-do-well. This paper will analyze "Greasy Lake" from the perspective of Boyle's nameless narrator and show how he uses language to illustrate his own chronicle of incipient awareness.

Since the story is told from the perspective of the narrator it may be safe to say that the story is reflective of the narrator: "There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste. We were all dangerous characters then" (Boyle, 1986, p. 1). The perspective, of course, is revealed from the beginning: the narrator is looking back at himself from the remove of some years (it may be presumed -- at least far enough that he can recognize himself for what he was: a punk). The style and ironic tone that the narrator uses allows us to see him as he saw himself at the time -- young, brash, cool, stylishly "bad" -- and yet, the descriptions lend a hint of satire to the episode (emphasizing the fact that these events are being spoken of in hindsight, after youth has given way to adulthood). When Jeff streaks "the side of [the narrator's] mother's Bel Air with vomit" (p. 2) we know that these characters are not all they think they are -- already their bodies are in revolt against them: their habits are more destructive than they think, and their lack of serious scrutiny and observation is about to land them in a heap of trouble, which, of course, serves as their ultimate wake-up-call.

These characters, as the narrator hints, are typical of the times: they are pretending to be the personification of rock 'n' roll -- of Hollywood screen icons -- of youths without homes, without parents, without rules, without laws. They smoke, drink, pretend to snort dangerous substances, and lust after girls. They have no purpose other than to exalt their own baser inclinations and call it embracing their nature. Their embrace, however sweet it may seem to them on the way to Greasy Lake (a name that implies the sordidness of their own revelry), is about to turn sour -- for it is, in reality, an unhealthy relationship. They take pride in their ability to drive fast, dance, fight, roll tight joints, and howl at the moon. Their vanity is about to be revealed to them.

The narrator is an Everyman type -- or, rather, an Every (young)man type: a silly, self-centered culmination of modern values: the expression of Rousseauian doctrine -- the natural man. There is a relentless force, as driven in the narrator and his friends, as the Bel Air along the rutted highway to Greasy Lake. Their lack of wit and sophistication is as evident to the narrator (of the present, looking back) as is their want of grace. Like a Flannery O'Connor story, "grace" is about to come hammering down on the young anti-heroes in the form of a big man, interrupted in his love-making by the three obnoxious hoodlums. "Grace" -- or, better, revelation -- destroys the narrator's mother's car (but leaves the tires in tact, as Digby humorously points out, allowing them to return to their homes, none-the-worse-for-wear and maybe a little more mature now too).

The narrator, in his effort to flee a beating the likes of which he has never before experienced, stumbles upon a disturbing scene in the lake itself -- a rotting corpse. The corpse is perhaps the most disturbing and deeply affecting element of the narrative. It penetrates the narrator's consciousness so deeply that it reduces him to a kind of child, who has just been reminded of the frailty of existence: when the girls show up looking for Al (presumably the dead man), the narrator for the first time confesses to wanting to return to the safety and protection of the nest: "I wanted to get out of the care and retch, I wanted to go home to my parents' house and crawl into bed" (p. 8). It is, in fact, the first time he has admitted to having a home, parents, family, a bed: he has alluded to the backgrounds of Digby and Jeff -- somewhat condescendingly (one of them "allows" his father to pay his tuition at university) -- but now a transformation has come over the narrator: he himself wants to flee reality and return to the comfort and security of the shelter provided by his parent's roof. Getting beat up and having your car smashed and discovering death lurking in the swamp just outside your sphere of adolescence will do that, the narrator laconically implies.