Greasy Lake

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1985

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Juxtaposition

Content Warning: This section references violence.

T. C. Boyle uses juxtaposition—the pairing of unlike or contrasting things—to draw connections between disparate ideas, such as the innocence the boys still possess even as they commit acts of violence. The narrator’s description of the moments after he hits the “greasy character” is an example: “I was still holding the tire iron, a tuft of hair clinging to the crook like dandelion fluff, like down” (11). The words “down” and “fluff” evoke fragility and innocence even as the contrasting images of the tire iron and the man’s hair remind readers that the narrator has possibly killed a man. Later, the narrator imagines the circumstances that might have led to the dead man’s demise in the lake: “Shot during a murky drug deal, drowned while frolicking in the lake” (16). The use of the word “frolicking” conjures something childlike and innocent, now dead and gone. Similarly, when the narrator makes contact with the dead body, he says it “gave like a rubber duck, it gave like flesh” (13). The juxtaposition of decaying flesh with the image of a child’s toy reinforces the boys’ innocence as the narrator is in the process of losing it.

Satire

T. C. Boyle is known for using satire—humor or irony that comments on societal topics and cultural trends. In this story, the narrator’s satirical tone when describing his and his friends’ “badness” implies that the boys are not as bad as they seem. He says of Digby and Jeff, for example, that “They were slick and quick and they wore their mirror shades at breakfast and dinner, in the shower, in closets and caves. In short, they were bad” (8). It’s obviously silly to wear sunglasses in these places, and it’s naive to think that doing so makes one “bad.” The repetition of the word “bad” throughout the story is itself satirical, as it implies the way the narrator and his friends cling to their persona, exposing its fragility. In reality, the boys simply engage in the classic, teenage mischief-making a reader would expect a “bad kid” to do:

On this, the third night, we’d cruised the strip sixty-seven times, been in and out of every bar and club we could think of in a twenty-mile radius, stopped twice for bucket chicken and forty-cent hamburgers […] and chucked two dozen raw eggs at mailboxes and hitchhikers (9).

The long list satirizes the boys’ actions: In detailing the full extent of the boys’ “badness,” the narrator never mentions anything that rises above the level of petty misbehavior. Puncturing the boys’ initial claims to badness in this way lays the groundwork for the real Loss of Innocence that the story relates.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a literary device that involves hinting at later narrative events. One notable instance occurs shortly after the boys arrive at Greasy Lake: “Whatever it was we were looking for, we weren’t about to find it at Greasy Lake. Not that night” (9). The addition of the short, terse phrase “not that night” contrasts tonally with the long-winded descriptions that come before it, hinting that something about this night will be less carefree than usual. Shortly after, the narrator refers to dropping his keys and misidentifying the parked car as “the first mistake” and “the second mistake” (9). Though the consequences of these “mistakes” aren’t yet clear, the word choice creates rising tension and foreshadows that the night will take a dark turn.

Allusion

An allusion is a reference to another work of literature or to a well-known event, person, etc. “Greasy Lake” contains many such references, often to 1960s culture and history. For example, the narrator comments on Digby’s “apocryphal tales of Bruce Lee types” in his martial arts course (10); the obvious exaggeration contributes to the work’s satirical tone, underscoring how little the boys actually know of fighting. Such references also develop the theme of Nature Versus Nurture and Male Violence, if only because they raise the question of whether the boys act violently because violence permeates pop culture.

T. C. Boyle also uses allusion to liken the narrator’s character arc to a form of baptism or rebirth. After the narrator drops the keys in the grass, he refers to them as “my grail, and my salvation” (10). The reference to spiritual salvation and to the Holy Grail—in Christian lore, the cup that caught Jesus’s blood during the crucifixion—are exaggerated and satirical given the sordid circumstances. Nevertheless, the narrator does undergo a figurative baptism when he enters the lake, which suggests that the reference to “salvation” wasn’t entirely wrong. The water “saves” the narrator, and when he returns to land, he is no longer interested in performing his “bad” persona.