Greasy Lake

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1985

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Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

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Character Analysis

The Narrator

The narrator is characterized largely indirectly through the way he thinks, as the story unfolds through his first-person point of view. The narrator does not disclose how much time has passed since his “bad” days—i.e., the era in which the story takes place—but it is implied that enough time has passed that he has thoroughly processed the events, which occurred when he was 19.

At the time of the story’s action, the narrator is young, naive, and sheltered. Though he frames himself as jaded, contextual details suggest that he remains immature in most ways: He drives his mother’s Bel Air and makes no reference to a job, school, or future plans. Prior to the main events of the story, he spent the better part of the evening pulling pranks and “cruising the strip” with his friends (8). His description of prior evenings at Greasy Lake is that of an observer rather than a participant, heightening the sense that he is not taking meaningful responsibility for his life, intent on being cool at the expense of independence and growth. By the end of the story, he has experienced a Loss of Innocence as a consequence of his own violent actions. The realization of what he is capable of deeply unnerves him, and T. C. Boyle implies that he afterwards gives up his bad-boy persona.

Digby and Jeff

The narrator introduces his friends Digby and Jeff as all but interchangeable: “They were both expert in the social graces, quick with a sneer, able to manage a Ford with lousy shocks over rutted and gutted blacktop road at eighty-five while rolling a joint as compact as a Tootsie Roll Pop stick” (8). The passage foreshadows the supporting role Digby and Jeff will play in the story; their shared persona as bad boys overshadows any individuality, with even the narrator identifying them as “dangerous characters” rather than friends.

Nevertheless, a few details about each boy do emerge. Digby, who wears an earring in one ear, is relying on his father to pay his tuition to Cornell College. The juxtaposition of a relatively minor act of rebellion with Digby’s ongoing dependence on his parents underscores that he, like the narrator, is playing at being “bad.” Digby encourages the narrator to honk and flash his lights at the car he believes belongs to their mutual friend, suggesting that he is playful and not one to think before he acts. Jeff is also in school, though his ambitions are scattered: “He was thinking of quitting school to become a painter/musician/headshop proprietor” (8). The impression is again of immaturity, and both Jeff and Digby’s initial naivete and lack of self-awareness are important to the story’s deconstruction of the bad-boy trope; by the end of the story, they seem as eager as the narrator to return to a sheltered existence.

Greasy Character

The narrator refers to the man he assaults with a tire iron as a “greasy character,” although a remark his girlfriend makes suggests his name may be Bobbie. “Clearly he was a man of action” (10), the narrator says when the man gets out of his car to confront the boys, immediately kicking the narrator in the chin with a steel-toed boot. The man’s greater experience fighting reveals the boys’ inexperience with the violence their bad-boy persona implies.