Greasy Lake Analysis

The story is written as a recollection of the event at Greasy Lake, so the narrator has a bit of an intro on what happened, and within it he states things like “We were all dangerous characters then” and “We were bad”. Now generally people who are truly “bad” do not come right out and say it. They let their actions speak for their words and allow the person judging their behavior to form their own opinion. The narrator calling himself “bad” is the first of many red flags that he was just trying to play the part
As the story continues on into the actual recollection, they morals of the characters become clear, it demonstrates how they just want to cause trouble in any way that they can just to fill the part as “bad”. It seems that they have almost developed how they act based on movies, they listened to rock and roll, smoked, did drugs, drank, and hung out with girls at the place where all “the cool kids were”, Greasy Lake. but it quickly becomes clear that they are just not a fit for the role.
One night, the narrator and his friends Digby and Jeff headed down to Greasy Lake as usual when they stumbled upon a metallic blue 57’ Chevy. Digby thought it was Tony Lovitte’s car, so the gang decided to mess with him by flickering their lights and
It led to him almost killing a man and raping a woman, and would not have forced him to submerge into the murky waters of Greasy Lake, but it did allow him to “emerge with a cleansed sense of maturity and understanding”(Ganter). He realizes how dirty and unpleasant Greasy Lake is and after seeing the dead man floating in the lake what happens to the people who frequent it. And because Greasy Lake is a physical symbol of the lifestyle that the narrator lives. The fact that he realizes how repulsing the lake is is a self-realization that his lifestyle is the