In T. C. Boyle’s Greasy Lake, the author uses extensive imagery to present changes in settings. Blending in diction, metaphors, and other literary devices, the author details the narrator’s inevitable downfall and his eventual epiphany, which triggers a new outlook and deeper understanding of himself, society, nature, and thus the cultivation of a new character. Through gradual change of perspective, Boyle illustrates the narrator’s change from being rebellious and destructive to being appreciative of peace and convention.

In the beginning of the story, the narrator depicts himself and his companions, Digby and Jeff, as rebellious teenagers who seek destruction in their lives just to look cool. “…gin in one hand and a roach clip in the other”, they took drugs and drank alcohol, listened to loud music, wrecked others’ properties, watched people make out by the lake, and “didn’t give a shit about anything” as they drove recklessly. The author portrays Greasy Lake as “fetid and murky” with its banks “glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” . This image of destruction parallels with and supports the main characters’ violent behaviour, thus explaining why they to Greasy Lake. As the teenagers rebel, they allow their primal instincts to govern themselves. Dictions including “snuff”, “howl”, and “primeval susurrus” imitate their animalistic behaviour as they inch towards what they perceived as “nature” then, which is to rebel. The main characters’ wish to seek adventure also determines their rebellion. They are shown to have “cruised the strip sixty-seven times” to search thrill within a small, isolated area around Greasy Lake. The repetition of their activities reflects their dissatisfaction of the lack of excitement within the region. The personification “winked” further demonstrates how something with only a tinge of abnormality such as a single car parked at a lot would have attracted the three characters and triggered excitement within themselves. In an era “when it was good to be bad”, the three main characters’ will to be cool supported by their acceptance of primitive behaviour and lack of excitement in their lives foreshadows their inevitable fight with the “greasy character”.

The initial lost in the fight triggers the main characters’ primal instincts of establishing power to surface. They lose their power of language as shown from their “motherfucker” chant and the apparent decrease in references to their speech. Although the alternating perspective shows the narrator’s mental switch to considering the consequences of what he did, his primal instincts of power ultimately causes him to, like his companions, attempt to rape the girl.

As the narrator scurried into the woods upon being discovered, not only had he made a physical transition from the lake to the woods nearer to the nature, he also psychologically travelled deeper into himself. Physically and psychologically decomposed as he breathes “in sobs, in gasps”, the narrator is frightened by his imagination of being charged for raping. The shock is intensified upon the narrator’s encounter with the dead body since he visualizes himself dead as a result of what he did. The constant reference to weak and lowly animals and plants such as algae, frogs, and muskrats demonstrates the narrator’s low status as he is being hunted and endangered. The image of slime and decay presented through “the image of reeking frogs and muskrats revolving in slicks of their own deliquescing juices” (pg 3) parallels with the narrator’s status of undergoing a psychological turmoil as he tried to accept the surrounding. Boyle’s clever use of imagery to symbolize the narrator’s psychological decomposition not only provides a reference to the main theme of the nature of Greasy Lake, but also a foundation for the cultivation of the narrator’s new personality.

The cultivation of the narrator’s new personality is symbolized through more positive images. Contrary to how he is easily influenced by others, the narrator vows to reconstruct his unique personality. This is evident through the image of “primordial ooze subtly reconstituting itself” with breaths of decay around. The “primordial ooze” here symbolizes the narrator’s emerging new personality. He is portrayed as a more responsible teenager as shown when he contemplated for excuses on the wrecked car. As the narrator thinks of the dead man, he reaches an epiphany: “he was probably the only person on the planet worse off than I was”. This indicates the narrator’s realization of his chance to compensate for and to rectify his past mistakes, an opportunity which a dead person will never possess. The narrator concludes that the dead man is a “bad older character”, “the owner of the chopper”, “shot during a murky drug deal, drowned while drunkenly frolicking in the lake”. This assumption corresponds to his realization of the deadly dangers involved in his past activities such as reckless driving, taking drugs, and drinking alcohol.

The narrator’s new character has fully blossomed at the end of the story. The positive descriptions of the smell of air being “raw and sweet at the same time” symbolizes the narrator’s new, thus raw, appreciation of positive elements around him. The personification of the smell of the sun “firing buds and opening blossoms” symbolizes the narrator’s disapproval of seeking destruction. The increased descriptions of the surrounding based on the narrator’s five senses mark his remarkable changes: “nature”, to the narrator, is now what seems peaceful and conventional. Besides, the narrator is now actively seeking for true friends instead of merely party-mates. This is evident when he recalls himself to think that “[he] was going to cry” when the two girls driving the Silver Mustang ignores the disappearance of the dead man, Al, and still has the moods to party. This description shows that the narrator again sees the dead man in himself and realizes that he will be so easily forgotten by party-mates who only care about rebelling and seeking fun. The narrator ultimately rejects to return to the murky world he once belonged to. By then he already had a clear idea of where he wants to belong to as demonstrated in the contrast with the girl “still standing there, watching [us], her shoulders slumped, hand outstretched” who is still seeking for her own identity like how the narrator used to do. Ending the story with the image of “a sheen of sun on the lake”, Boyle successfully introduces a somewhat bright future for the narrator and augments the cultivation of a new character.

As a recollection of an experience, the sophisticated diction in Greasy Lake and recurring references to classics and historical events not only aids description of the event, but also supports how the narrator changed throughout the story. Detailed by extensive imagery, diction, metaphors, and other literary devices, the narrator’s new outlook and deeper understanding of himself, society, and nature is supported by descriptions of his emotional changes. Unique and touching – this is the nature of the narrator’s cultivation of new character.