Greasy Lake Point-Of-View Is Everything.

¶ … Greasy Lake

Point-of-view is everything. This is especially true in the short story, "greasy Lake," by T.C. Boyle. In this story, the first-person narration becomes significant because it allows the reader to understand the narrator's point-of-view and how he has changed over the course of the story. In this story, our narrator begins as a self-proclaimed bad guy that runs into a chance encounter that reduces him to a little less bad that he thought he could ever be. His honesty make this story real to readers and without the first-person narration, it would lose some of its appeal. In short, the story would lose its power if not told through the narrator's personal experience.

The narrative is important because of how the narrator sees himself. In the beginning of the story, the narrator admits that the and all of his friends were "dangerous characters then' (112). They "wore torn-up leather jackets, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine' (112). When he describes his friends, he calls them "dangerous characters" (112). This image of toughness is important because the narrator believes it. He and his friends are bad and dangerous. This attitude quickly changes when the narrator and his friends encounter a more dangerous looking character, that was "clearly a man of action" (113) wearing steel-toe boots. Here, the challenge to all of his former toughness is beginning to be challenged. The incident that sends the narrator into the lake continues this realization for the narrator and the encounter with the dead body suddenly causes the narrator to change his point-of-view about practically everything.

Considering death has a way of making us realize our mortality. In this story, a brush with a murky dead body is just what the doctor ordered to help our narrator grow up. In addition, we cannot overlook how important it is that the narrator wants to be bad and attempts to be on this fateful night. He wants to be tough and he hits his friend and then almost rapes his girlfriend. In all of his toughness, however, he finds himself escaping into the greasy lake for safety. This is just the opposite thing a tough guy would do. The encounter with the dead body only releases the fear and lack of courage the boy has. His idea that the incident with the body is "one of those nasty little epiphanies" (116) emphasizes how the narrator's thoughts have shifted from pulling a prank to feeling as if one is being pulled on you - except this one is real.

He might think it a nasty epiphany but it forces him to grow up in a way he does not comprehend until the early morning sunshine welcomes a certain safety. His little encounter with the dead biker opens his eyes to everything that is alive in the world.

The narrator is shaken by the experience and he will never be the same again. The night was long and the events shocking. The narrator moves from thinking of himself as a dangerous young man to a "mere child, an infant" (116). Later when the girl asks them to party, the narrator says, "I just looked at her. I thought I was going to cry" (119). This statement reveals how the narrator has changed. He no longer looks at the world in the same way and he no longer feels the same way about it or the people in it. He has touched the cusp of becoming a man in that he has touched death and understands how real it is. One significant aspect of this turning point is seen when the narrator experiences the fresh morning air. He writes that that the "birds had begun to take over for the crickets, and dew lay slick on the leaves" (118) and the air was "raw and sweet at the same time" (118). Clearly this is not the same young man that bragged about sniffing glue and wearing torn leather. The boy at the beginning of the story would have never appreciated anything about a sunrise. Regardless of if he wants to be different or not, he is changed.