Greasy Lake (T. Coraghessan Boyle)

T. Coraghessan Boyle's "Greasy Lake," is a short story that features three young friends who become involved in an reckless night of adolescent thrill-seeking that involves physical violence, attempted rape, and a murder. The narrator and his two friends, Digby and Jeff, inadvertently become involved in the beating of "Bobby," a bad sort they interrupt with his girlfriend who the narrator is forced to club with a tire iron. Thinking him dead, they attempt to rape the girl. When two fraternity brothers come upon the scene, they become determined to get revenge. Though the narrator and his friends thought him so, Bobby is not dead. However, a biker's body is found floating in the lake, the outcome of the frat brothers' and Bobby's revenge. When a girl comes looking for a biker named "Al," the narrator and his friends deny knowledge of him. As we are told, they leave "The girl�standing there, watching [them], her shoulders slumped, hand outstretched," (Boyle, p. 11). In a postmodern world of relative ethics and socially constructed values, Boyle's "Greasy Lake" is a symbol for the moral quagmire faced by human beings in their daily actions in such an environment.

We see that appearances are all that matter to the narrator and his friends. Their ethics, values, and aspirations are the stuff of Hollywood cinema and popularity contests for hoods. As the narrator describes he and his friends, they are "quick with a sneer, able to manage a Ford with lousy shocks over

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Category: Literature - G