Response to Greasy Lake

I found that Greasy Lake was overall a comical story. In the opening, the narrator tries to present himself and his two friends as "bad characters". As he is describing himself it is clear that he is in no way truly bad. He borrows his mother's car, and drinks fruity alcohol. He and his friends were trying to be bad. I thoroughly enjoyed the description of the narrator's friends.  My favorite was when he described Digby as a dangerous character who even "allowed his father to pay his tuition to Cornell". This, if anything serves as a reason for why they are NOT bad. Not only did Digby do well enough to even be accepted to Cornell, but he comes from a middle to upper class family where his father can afford to pay his tuition for him! There is not a single thing "bad" about that. Furthermore, the boys cannot even manage to consume hard alcohol but rather, drink "lemon-flavored" gin.

            I enjoyed how the narrator blamed the dropping of the key as the impetus for all the trouble they got in.  There were many ironic themes and instances in this essay, and the key certainly was not excluded. When the narrator needed the key most of all, he could not find it, but once it was no longer urgent, the key seemed rather obviously placed on the ground. The most prevalent example of irony is the boys themselves; they attempt to present themselves as bad, when in reality they are rather nerdy. After having been beaten up, raped a girl, and encountered a dead body, the narrator tries to think of excuses to tell his mom, and the best he can come up with is that he was playing chess. The fact that his mom would even believe this further goes to show how nerdy the boys are.

The story reminded me of the movie Project X.  The boys believe themselves to be dangerous, but once they encounter the sort of mischief they were looking for, they were nowhere near prepared to handle it. These are boys who are used to doing well in school and now want to try and “live a little”. They end up getting into more trouble than they anticipated. In a way it is similar to the “Little Boy Who Cries Wolf” after claiming to be bad and have these adventures they end up face to face with actual trouble. I found it really funny, in a rather morbid way, when the narrator falls on top of a corpse in the lake. This experience just seems downright disgusting. While it is creepy, it is comical at the same time.

                Overall I enjoyed Greasy Lake, and while there were frightening moments, it was overall rather comical and enjoyable.