The Greasy Lake, By T. C. Boyle

In the life of every individual there is always a critical time where it is essential to stop running and rethink his life. This moment is like a lifeline in the middle of an ocean. For some, it is a series of progressive steps. For others, it is a revelation, abrupt, usually accompanied by a tragedy and or disappointments that often lead to the change of one’s perspective in life. In his short story the “Greasy Lake” T.C. Boyle helps us understand how this moment of revelation can be intricate and risky but life-changing.

One mistake follows another; the narrator faced probable and actual consequences leading up to a revelatory moment: the discovery of a floating body in the Lake. This moment breaks and transforms him. “My car was wrecked;

One of them is the dualism of night/day and dark/ light. Boyle uses the setting of the lake as a mean to express those two sides by the nighttime that symbolize the dark side of the boys and their mischievous behavior or those laconic adjectives “dark, rank, and mysterious” to express their state of mind then (50). However, he did the opposite by using a whole paragraph to describe the sunrise after the fatidic event. Mother Nature takes life for the first time in the story. "When the eastern half of the sky went from black to cobalt and the trees began to separate themselves from the shadows…” (54). This quote introduces a transition, a turning point in the life of our mischief narrator.

One another metaphor in this story is represented by the car key. The lost of the car key is an important event in the story. If the narrator didn’t lose his key, he and his friends would be able to leave the greasy lake when Bobby emerged from his car. All the misadventures would also be avoided. The narrator acknowledged this assertion when he affirmed that the “mistake” that open the all “floodgate” was when he lost his grip on the keys

Despite they had their butt kicked, have bitten the dust, have forced to run and have almost killed a man and rape the passed away man’s girlfriend, they have still managed to keep their innocence. They were as damage as the car was after the sabotage, but like the car, they were able to run away from the filthy lake. “Greasy Lake” is not just a fictional story portraying three teenage boys. It is a story of revelation intended to inspire young and old folks in their lives. It is also the story of every person who crossed the period of adolescence, a story of transition. The three young men in history were able to take advantage of this period to go forward in their lives. But how many adults, young or old, are now in bad shape in their life because they have failed to take advantage of this