Everyone makes mistakes in their life, in the end what really matters is the lesson you learn from the mistake. In the stories An Ounce of Cure by Alice Munro and Greasy Lake by T.C. Boyle, the plot revolves around teenagers who make a life changing mistake but come out as different people in the end. In An Ounce of Cure, the story takes place in a small conservative town full of judgmental and gossiping people. The main character is a girl in her freshman year of high school, she is also the narrator. The main characters in Greasy Lake are three teenage boys, Digby, Jeff, and the narrator who isn’t named. In An Ounce of Cure, the narrator goes through a break up with her first boyfriend and decides to get drunk at a house while babysitting, …show more content…
and the story spreads like a wild fire throughout her town. In the story of Greasy Lake, the three rebellious teens are out looking for trouble and they end up getting into a fight with another guy and his girlfriend. They end up knocking out the guy and then scattering and realizing that they have gotten into too much trouble this time. Teenagers cannot be taught lessons any way other than experiencing situations themselves, rather than hearing it from someone with more wisdom than them. The main characters both learn lessons in these two stories.
After breaking up with Martin Collingwood, the main character in An Ounce of Cure resorts to alcohol in a town that is strongly against alcohol, let alone underage consumption, “…I remember that when I signed the pledge in grade seven, with the rest of that superbly if impermanently indoctrinated class…” (Munro 75). This quote further shows that in her town, they are extremely strict on drinking and look down upon it. She gets way too drunk and ends up getting caught. Was a boy worth such a reputation wrecker and a disappointment to her parents? There is no way she will ever get another baby-sitting job after that. She learns a lesson in which she needs to stop her actions and not rely on alcohol when she is sad. After knocking the man out with a tire iron in Greasy Lake, the boys scatter and hide until all the commotion dies down. While waiting, the main character sees a dead body floating in the lake. He realizes that if he doesn’t slow down or stop with his rambunctious actions, then he too would end up just like the body floating in the lake. In both stories the teenage characters realize that they have crossed the …show more content…
line. These stories aren’t alike in every way though, the lessons they learned both changed them in the end, but they have their differences.
In An Ounce of Cure, the narrator isn’t in trouble in terms of assault and going to prison, but the lesson she learned is that boys and high school relationships aren’t worth the pain they bring. They aren’t worth the trouble she got herself into either. In Greasy Lake, the teenagers sought out to find trouble and do what the average teenage boy does. The scrap with the man with his girlfriend served as more or less of a wakeup call to the boys. They had to get their lives on track, “I just looked at her. I thought I was going to cry. Digby broke the silence. ‘No thanks,’” (Boyle 694). This quote is at the end of the story in which they are asked if they want to party with two girls, the quote shows that they did end up learning their lesson and they did not want to be reckless
anymore. A common theme in the two stories is Man vs. Society. In Greasy Lake, the main characters didn’t fit in. They were troublemaking outsiders, and they struggle in the story to fight against society. The Man vs. Society theme can be seen in An Ounce of Cure in which the strong conservative town rejects her for her actions. “Most of the people we knew were the same way, in the small town where we lived” (Munro 75). This quote shows that most people in her town were alike in the sense that they did not drink. A small town like the one she lives in just feeds off gossip and stories like the one of the narrator. Everyone makes mistakes in their lives. That is what makes us human. Though, it is how you react to your mistake and what you take from it, that determines what kind of a human you are. In An Ounce of Cure, the narrator goes into her babysitting house as a kid when she decides to drink, but in the end of the situation she comes out as an adult and realizes that a boy is not worth the pain she is in and alcohol is not the answer to her sadness. In Greasy Lake, the three teenage boys were out looking for trouble, they described themselves as bad boys who didn’t care about anything. Though the story that was told was the end of their days as bad boys, because they left the story as men. In both stories the main characters left as grown-ups. Teenagers cannot be taught lessons any better way than experiencing situations themselves, rather than hearing it from someone with more wisdom than them.
Throughout the stories, both characters are showing strong scents of refusing their present status. Sammy is a nineteen years-old boy working at a grocery store who stands up against the manager to impress the girl he has fallen to. The mystery narrator from “Greasy Lake” is also nineteen years youth. He is playing as a bad character whom any teen thought was cool at that time – the bad boy. But what he experiences is not a prank but what a real bad guy would do. Luckily, Sammy and the narrator realize the dark cloud that covering them all this time after the conflict with others. “Wisdom comes alone through suffering”. (qtd Aeschylus)
Authors often use details that evoke a response in readers to produce an effective description. Their aim is not simply to tell readers what something looks like but to show them. Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Grave” and E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake” are essays that use subjective language to illustrate the principles of effective description. Porter’s “The Grave” describes a childish afternoon of rabbit hunting that brings death close enough to be seen and understood, while White’s “Once More tot he Lake” is a classic essay of persona; reminiscence in which he recreates the lakeside camp he visited with his son.
The novel, Whirligig, by Paul Fleischman shares the story of Brent Bishop, a teen who moves around often and has a hard time doing so, leading him to become extremely insecure about himself. The reader experiences Brent going through a troubled move as he loses control of himself at a party where he was bullied and became drunk. He ended up suffering the consequences of his actions by becoming suicidal on the road and ultimately killing another teen, Lea. Brent then leaves on a journey in search for becoming a better person and in restitution for Lea’s family. Brent's actions both before and after his journey result in many different consequences,both positive and negative, and they all changed him in one way or another.
Their choices in the beginning are vastly different from those at the end. The plot of Greasy Lake is centered around this change in mindset and the choices the characters made, making it clear that the message was centered around this coming of age experience that they had. The message of Greasy Lake is focused on the change in character of the three boys, when they realized what keeping up their “bad” behavior can cause. It shows the reader one experience that changed teenagers into adults, which many other people experience as well. Everyone has been to Greasy Lake at some point in their lives, where they question who they are and become more mature, and this story exemplifies that journey through its main
What makes Grease and Footloose an all-time classic musical film to watch is the way they easily appeal to teenagers then to teenagers now. The catchy tunes, stunning john Travolta in grease, same relatable plots in footloose, along with the wild dance moves in both movies is what makes these two films ironically very similar. Both of the main protagonists in this movie move to new areas, where new influences effect not only their teen romance, yet as well as affect their ability to avoid unwanted people and the sense of being and outsider. However, grease and footloose are taken place in a high school setting where the relationships of each individual is changed due to the social influences brought by their peers. The relatable struggle of peer pressure in today’s society is exactly the same struggles portrayed in the past and in which is shown vividly in these to movies. Peer pressure was inevitable to all the characters; grease showed how the negativity of peer pressure effected Danny and Sandy while Ren and Ariel in footloose showed how peer pressure can have a positive influences throughout their relationship.
Drugs is one of the themes in this story that shows the impact of both the user and their loved ones. There is no doubt that heroin destroys lives and families, but it offers a momentary escape from the characters ' oppressive environment and serves as a coping mechanism to help deal with the human suffering that is all around him. Suffering is seen as a contributing factor of his drug addiction and the suffering is linked to the narrator’s daughter loss of Grace. The story opens with the narrator feeling ice in his veins when he read about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin. The two brothers are able to patch things up and knowing that his younger brother has an addiction. He still buys him an alcoholic drink at the end of the story because, he has accepted his brother for who he really is.
In the story, “Boys and Girls”, the narrator is not the only one coming to terms with their identity.
According to Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey, about ninety-three Canadians have consumed alcohol their whole life. Why is this important? The novel As She Grows by Lesley Anne Cowan, written in Toronto, is based around Snow, just fifteen, who grew up without a mother or father. She was raised by her grandmother, a well-meant but mentally unstable alcoholic. Her grandmother is part of those ninety-three Canadians who have consumed alcohol their whole life. All of these people can potentially abuse alcohol, and their children would be affected by bad parenting similar to Snow. In this essay, I will be analyzing Snow’s relationship with her alcoholic grandmother, and consider the effects of bad parenting, through negative effects
We knocked on the door of the off-campus apartment, as it opened we were confronted with the heavy stench of alcohol. A young girl was passed out on the living room floor, a pile of empty beer cans filled the kitchen sink, and the deafening music rattled the window panes. A group of girls managed to stumble past us. They waved goodbye to the host, who was handing drinks to me and my sister. It was not my first time drinking. In fact, everyone there was quite experienced – after all, it’s college. Half of the guests were completely drunk, and I had no problem with it. That is, until later that night when my sister locked herself in a room with a guy she had met only a week before. This prompted me to seriously consider the effects of alcohol. Would my sister have been able to see the danger of the situation had she been sober? Would the absence of alcohol have prevented the events of that night from occurring? These questions, along with the vivid memory of that night, fueled my examination of the complex social problem of underage drinking.
"Young People's Drinking." International Center for Alcohol Policies Meetings & News Press Releases Welcome to ICAP. 2011. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .
After denial the family tries to get rid of the problem. The non-alcoholic parent realizes that the drinking is not normal and tries to tell the alcoholic to quit, be more careful, or at least cut down. The parent also tries to hide the problems from the outside and keep up a strong look. The kids may now start to have problems due to the family stress.(Harrison)
The Confidence Alcohol Gave Me: “I believed the people who romanticized those years, the ones who told me to embrace irresponsibility before I was slapped with the burdens of corporate adulthood” (23). Zailckas’ alcohol binging started at a very young age and followed her for nearly a decade. She turned to alcohol because of her peers who told her to live it up while she was still young and before she had to take on all these adult responsibilities. In the novel, “Smashed: The Story of a Drunken Girlhood,” Koren Zailckas opens up about what caused her alcohol addiction and how it left her with lifelong physical and emotional effects. Alcohol is very commonly used because it distracts the mind from the problems we face in life.
Underage drinking activity is not only hurting adolescents. It also affects the world around them such as their families, friends and community. Why is underage drinking occurring? What is the reasoning behind their starting to drink at such an early age? Childhood experiences, parents, peers and the media have more effect on underage drinking than people may think.
As a result of underage drinking, 5,000 adolescents under the age of 21 die annually due to intoxication (taking motor vehicle crashes, homicides, suicides, and other injuries while intoxicated into consideration) (paragraph 2). Later in life, underage drinkers are more likely to develop alcoholism, poor performance in school, and risky sexual behavior (paragraph 43). Although this research is not opposed to my argument, there is an importance to acknowledging it as proof of dangerous, underage drinking occurring significantly regardless of whether it is illegal. More importantly, this research stems from adolescents drinking without the supervision of adults and in uncontrolled quantities. Since adolescents must wait a long period of time to drink legally, I believe they fear they must take advantage of drinking opportunities by excess drinking and risk of safety due to their restriction to alcohol. Based on this mindset, I believe exposure to alcohol at a younger age in controlled environments would not only decrease underage drinking in large quantities, but injury and death related to intoxication, as
Most people do not realize that alcohol is a drug that claims the lives of youth in college campuses across the world. In my case, it took the encounter with the ORL staff at UCLA for me to come to understanding that I am putting myself and those around me in danger through my risky drinking habits. With hours of self-reflection and the help of a cosmopolitan article called The Deadly Drinking Mistakes Smart Girls Make, I have found that there are several risks associated with alcohol that can put me at a quarrel with death. Even so, drinking does not always need to be deadly, and by keeping in mind the well-being of my fellow bruins and the skills mentioned in the article, I can find a balance between drinking for fun and drinking till death.