Greasy Lake Summary

“Greasy Lake” by T Coraghenssan Boyle is a short story about three male teenagers from suburban families that try their hand in the life of being bad and macho men. The young men are influenced by the cultural revolution that was going on in the United States during the 1960’s that created an impression that an ideal man is one who is bad, aggressive, irrational and masculine. The mass media played a major role in influencing the teenagers to put on the mask of being ‘bad.’ The mass media through movies and television programs had created an impression that being bad is cool. Protagonists in most of the movies that the three teenagers were watching also suggested that being bad is being ‘cool.’ As a result, the three teenagers decided to …show more content…
On their night out, the boys come across a corpse in the greasy waters of the Greasy Lake. Never in their lives had the boys seen a corpse in a different place other than in a morgue or a casket. The boys are afraid of the corpse to the extent that some of them think that the corpse may come back to life and haunt them. While out of hiding, from the approaching car, the boys had run and left behind their car. On coming back from their hiding, the boys find their parents car severely damaged. As the boy’s search for their car keys, a car with two women approaches them. The women ask the boys if they would mind having a party. Partying in this context refers to engaging in debaucheries with the women, the women are prostitutes. The boys are shy because they are sexually inexperienced and the request from the two women leaves them tongue tied. If the boys were truly bad, they would have been sexually experienced, and as a result, they would have accepted the offer from the two women. The boys leave the Greasy Lake, discouraged, with a beat-up car, feeling like losers because they had not achieved what they had gone out to pursue. As a matter of the fact, the boys feel timid, and their rebellious spirit is completely