Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay about teenage behavior
Essay about teenage behavior
Symbolism in greasy lake
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essay about teenage behavior
What does it mean to be “bad”? In his short story “Greasy Lake”, T. Coraghessan Boyle writes: “There was a time when chivalry and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad”. Being “bad” can mean dressing uniquely and acting differently, but there is a line between being a “bad” character and being truly “bad”. When that line is crossed unfortunate things happen to the character. Boyle uses the setting of Greasy Lake to show how a teenage wasteland can lead to moral decay. To begin, Greasy lake is a place for teens to act or flirt with the idea of “bad”.The narrator writes: “It was 2:00 A.M; the bars were closing. There was nothing to do but take a bottle of lemon-flavored gin up to Greasy Lake”. Usually teens that are “bad” are up in the wee hours of morning, drinking and messing around. As the story progresses, the narrator …show more content…
Before the narrator and his friends could sexually assault the girl, the “bad character’s” reinforcements arrive. “Before we could pin her to the hood of the car.. a pair of headlights swung into the parking lot. We bolted”. Running away from the car, the narrator hides in the lake knowing that people would not look for him there. While in the filth of the lake, the narrator's moral breaks down and is filled with remorse: “I was breathing in small gasps and sobs. Digby and Jeff had vanished. I waded deeper, stealthy, hunted, the ooze sucking at my sneakers”. But that was not the end of the narrator’s emotional breakdown or karma. While in the lake he encounters a dead body. “(I was nineteen, a mere child, an infant, and here in the space of five minutes I had struck down one greasy character and into the waterlogged carcass of another)”. At this point the narrator is so devastated because he is experiencing so many emotions: sadness, guilt, anguish, dread, and disorientation. He is covered in filth, scared out of his mind, and completely
The lake itself plays a major role throughout the story, as it mirrors the characters almost exactly. For example, the lake is described as being “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans” (125). The characters are also described as being “greasy” or “dangerous” several times, which ties the lake and the characters together through their similarities. The narrator explains, “We were bad. At night we went up to Greasy Lake” (124). This demonstrates the importance that the surroundings in which the main characters’ choose to be in is extremely important to the image that they reflect. At the beginning of the story, these characters’ images and specifically being “bad” is essentially all that mattered to them. “We wore torn up leather jackets…drank gin and grape juice…sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine” (124). They went out of their ...
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
In the commencement of the story, the narrator is shocked and in disbelief about the news of his brother’s incarceration, “It was not to be believed” (83). It had been over a year since he had seen his brother, but all he had was memories of him, “This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done” (83). The narrator’s thoughts about Sonny triggered his anxiety that very day. It was difficult to bear the news of what his brother had become, yet at some point he could relate to Sonny on a personal level, “I hear my brother. And myself” (84). After the news had spurred, the narrator experienced extreme anxiety to the point of sweating. Jus...
After this story, the narrator expresses concern for his friend, Luo, and tries to help how ever he could. Through the narrator personal experience, it can make the reader second guess this passage, and wonder if Sijie had experienced this first hand.
The extensive use of pathos in this novel is exemplified in the scenario where Catherine forces Dave to lay on a burning stove naked. The ruthlessness does not end there. After preventing Dave from consuming any food for about 3 days his mother claims that he must finish cleaning the dishes within 20 minutes. Extremely drunk his mother holds a knife and puts it in front of his face and screams, “If you don’t finish on time, I’m going to kill you” (Pelzer, 50). In her blurred state of mind Catherine lost her footing and stabbed Dave.
He began to boast and embellish the story of what actually happened in that moment. He became seemingly selfish, and self absorbed doing only what would advance him in the society. After the small infraction of lying about this event, he brought John and his mother from their home, only to use them for personal gain and blackmail. These moments reveal that he is not so much about defining himself as an individual but more about conforming. That he did, becoming calculating and cold for self-gain.
...e, because she’s too busy running around on some-” (Gaitskill 317) and these words show us how utterly “shitty” (Gaitskill 317) he feels, be it warranted or not. He’s faced with the reality that his wife and daughter are ‘leaving’ him behind, doing whatever necessary to detach themselves from his wretched stubbornness and consequently he’s left miserable and alone to mull over the bitter past and even more difficult present. He begins as a likeable character, but gradually becomes a self-righteous and hateful idiot. But, by the end the reader is left feeling extremely sympathetic for him. Though he’s in fact the bad guy, he gets us to view him as the bad guy whose evil is almost justified, or at least that it’s an inevitable symptom of his difficult childhood, poor marriage, extreme anxiety over what others think of him, and disapproval of his daughters lifestyle.
Vinny was confused. On pages 6 and 7 Vinny’s dads tells him to go to the Ravine, his mom tells him not to go, because she says Ravine is haunted this was making no sense to Vinny whether to go or not to go without permission. Vinny was scared. The author states that Vinny stepped around a footprint in the mud. Thinking about the boy taking this same path to the ravine, then jumping to his death gave Vinny the creeps. Vinny was weak.The author states on page 10 and 11. Vinny was weak to say no to his friends
One’s morals set in place the actions they see as proper and improper in their current society. Individuals in the same socioeconomic settings tend to overlap and correspond to each other. Other times morals are nonexistent or different due to one’s upbringing and culture, this means that ‘appropriate’ decisions as seen by some people may be seen as ‘inappropriate’ to others. Evil in terms of morals can be defined as someone 's morals being so extreme or nonexistent when compared to those of modern society 's views that they can not be logically comprehended.
The narrator fantasizes death. “So I take phosphates . . . forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again” (pg. 1). The narrator is taken away from her
Throughout the novel Mack’s defeatist attitude allows The Great Sadness to take over his life and make him feel like he is “weighed down as if he were wearing a leaden bathrobe…” (25). However it is the unknown in which his daughter Kate struggles with the most in her faith. Kate feels responsible that she was the catalyst in which fueled her sister's death. The Great Sadness is a feeling the author creates for a reader to let them experience how much the recurrence of Mack’s grief has induced him abiding sorrow and misery. This is stated from the narrator, “Shortly after the summer that Missy vanished, The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack’s shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt.” (24). His life past his daughter's murder, has driven him into a permanent state of guilt. Mack feels although he saved his son from drowning, leaving Missy unattended, he should have realized that she was alone, an easy target for a predator. He replays this event constantly and consistently feels guilt. Mack blames all of Missy’s death and the emotions that have flooded him on Papa and that she betrayed him. Mack suffers through his thoughts in which he thinks that Papa had unlimited power and chose not to spare Missy and save his heartache. The unknown of what could have happened if they had chosen to take action in different activities leading up to Missy’s death has Kate feeling responsible for her sister Missy’s death. If Kate had not wanted to go canoeing then her brother wouldn’t have fallen into the water, and Missy would not have been left alone. Papa explains this to Mack about his daughter, “Kate believes that she is to blame for Missy’s death.” (236). The unknown of Missy’s remains, and of her conscious state leaves Mack questioning the suffering that Papa lets him endure. Mack has to decide to start the journey with Papa with
Every good story revolves around key elements: Setting, Narrative point of view, Style, and Tone. In the story “Greasy Lake”, the setting primarily revolves around Greasy Lake, a parking lot next to a body of water really. However, its original and present condition plays an important part in shaping the story.
Jack Salmon, Susie’s father, is most vocal about his sorrow for losing his daughter. However, his initial reaction was much different. Upon hearing that Susie’s ski hat had been found, he immediately retreats upstairs because “he [is] too devastated to reach out to [Abigail] sitting on the carpet…he could not let [her] see him” (Sebold 32). Jack retreats initially because he did not know what to do or say to console his family and he did not want them to see him upset. This first reaction, although it is small, is the first indicator of the marital problems to come. After recovering from the initial shock, Jack decides that he must bring justice for his daughter’s sake and allows this goal to completely engulf his life. He is both an intuitive and instrumental griever, experiencing outbursts of uncontrolled emotions then channeling that emotion into capturing the killer. He focuses his efforts in such an e...
Imagine you were only 10 or so years old, you and your best friend were outside in the middle of a storm. Your best friend got swept away in a wave under your watch, you would never forgive you self, but should you? The narrator of a short story “The Seventh Man” was doing this exact thing. He was watching his friend K whilst out in the middle of a storm, and the narrator had said that he was leaving to his friend. His friend couldn't hear him. Towards the end of the book, K had been swallowed up by the waves, and the narrator was felt it was him fault. Should he? No, he shouldn't.
1. Fresh water comes from ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, icebergs, lakes, rivers and stream. They also come from underground sources like; groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. The water in glaciers and ice caps is frozen. Only 3% of the water on the planet is fresh. The water all has something to do the water cycle. First you've got evaporation; water becomes water vapour and changes into a gas. Then there is condensation and the water vapour becomes a cloud. The last one is precipitation, this is rain, snow, etc. (to be continued)