Greasy Lake Themes

The narrator of “Greasy Lake” describes a world in which “courtesy and winning ways [are] out of style,” and in which he and his friends “cultivate decadence like a taste.” To put it bluntly, the narrator and his friends think it’s cool to be bad. This story explores the allure of danger through the narrator’s retelling of a truly dangerous night that he and his friends passed at Greasy Lake, ultimately concluding that the…

At the start of the story, the narrator explains that Greasy Lake has gone from being a remarkable natural landmark (noted for the “clarity” of its waters) to a complete cesspool. “Glittering broken glass” and “beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” line the lake’s edge. As Greasy Lake has grown more and more physically polluted, the behavior of those who live around it and visit it has grown polluted, too. Where once people…

“Greasy Lake” is set in the past: it’s a story from the narrator’s memory, and there is a distance between the older narrator who tells the story and the younger version of himself who is at the story’s center. This distance is evident from the way that the narrator’s over-the-top tone seems to mock his younger self and his friends, as well as through the narrator’s perspective on the night’s events. For instance, he doesn’t…