Please read T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “Greasy Lake,” which starts on page 293 in your book, Backpack Literature. Please post your response to the following questions:
1. Describe the personalities of Digby, Jeff, the narrator. Give some evidence from the text to support what you say.
2. What is the effect of knowing that the dead man’s name is “Al”?
I suggest that you compose your answers in MS Word and then copy/paste onto the space provided and click “Submit Comment.”
1. Digby, Jeff, and the narrator were all friends. They seemed like bad boys who dressed in leather jackets and had toothpicks in there mouth. The narrator was the driver, Digby was the front passenger, and Jeff was in the back seat throwing up because he obviously couldn’t handle his liquor very well. Digby was kind of a spoiled kid who wore a star in his right ear and had his parents pay his tuition. Jeff on the other hand kind of rebellious and wanted to drop out of school and become self employed. They drank and did drugs and partied all night until there was nothing to do.
2. Knowing the dead man was Al was kind of confusing because i remember in the beginning of the story him getting off his bike and then through everything that happens he end up dead. Then i know the narrator said something about it being a drug deal that went wrong. So then these girls show up in the same car that they got into a fight with earlier that night but the greasy guy character was not there and the girls were looking for the motorcycle guy named Al. So im not really sure. I think this confused me a little bit.
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1. Digby seems to be a smart, spoiled kid who had his his father pay his tuition at Cornell. He also seems to be very outgoing and friendly. Jeff is the free spirited one, who wants to quit school to become a painter/musician/head-shop proprietor. But outgoing and friendly just like Digby. The narrator on the other hand seems to be the more to himself, quiet, and independent. The narrator is independent to me because he was the one to drive and when they all ran to hide, he hid alone in the water.
2. The effect of knowing the dead man’s name is Al is because when the two girls came at the end, they went straight to the motorcycle, pacing back and forth calling out the name “Al”. When the girl came over to the car to ask if they had seen “Al” the narrator got nervous and clenched his wheel, remembering the dead man he saw in the water while he was hiding.
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1. Throughout Boyle’s short story the personality that we get to see the most is the narrators; although he pretends to be a bad boy along with the rest of his friends, it is very clear that he is well educated and not at all as much of a trouble maker as he likes to seem. Making references to French writers and historical figures shows his clear knowledge and his resemblance to the author. Digby is described as a spoiled teenager who also pretends to be tough while he has his tuition paid at Cornell; and Jeff was also “slick and quick” and had plans of dropping out of school with the hopes of becoming a painter/musician/head-shop proprietor.
2. I think that the effect of knowing the dead man’s name is to make it personal. For the narrator walking away and keeping his mouth shut even to his friends about his horrible encounter in the lake was already bad enough, but now he also gets to walk away not only with the memory but also with the name of the corpse he hugged throughout this eerie night. Also throughout the story the narrator keeps mentioning “that’s another head-line” – when the body does turn up and is identified he’ll be reminded of that night and of what he knows.
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1. Digby and Jeff are quite similar. Both are “expert in the social graces, quick with a sneer…slick…[and] in short,…bad.” They too are slightly leader-like, and hunger after fun and exciting mischief. Seemingly fearless teenagers with no inhibitions, they neither think twice about nor suffer any guilt for their heinous act of trying to rape a young lady. Of course one might argue that they are high and drunk. The narrator, although partaking in this raping frenzy, seems kind of novice compared to them in his bad-ass attitude, still suffering from clumsiness and uncontrolled excitement as we see when he drops his car keys in the “dark, rank, mysterious nighttime grass of Greasy Lake.” We also get a glimpse of his inexperience through his wild, thoughtless feat of tire iron wielding, almost fatally injuring his opponent, not contemplating the consequences. Furthermore, he was probably coaxed by the other two veterans of trouble to use his car as the mode of transportation as they probably didn’t want to risk their cars while high and drunk. Under strong peer-pressure, he acquiesced. Though each with his own distinct personality, all three of these young, devilish rascals seem to be one of those common groups of teenagers looking for a rush.
2. Knowing that the dead man’s name is Al does two things. First, it tells us that he was hanging out with those two drugged up girls from the mustang, hinting that it was probably drugs that lead to his demise, possibly through drowning. And secondly, it kind of foretells a gloomy future for these three boys. One of the two girls witnessed the narrator, Digby, and Jeff in a wrecked car, all three of them dirty and covered in blood. If Al doesn’t show up, or for that matter does show up, the finger will be pointed at them.
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1. The personality of Digby is someone who seems to be a bad guy but tries to get an education seeing as how Digby allows his father to pay for his tuition. Jeff is shown to not really care about school but still wants to attain a job as a painter/musician/head-shop. Digby and Jeff are actually common with both being “experts in social graces and quick with a sneer.” The narrator himself appears to be more educated than we believe. Throughout the story he says various events happening through the titles of people and books, an example is when he was kicked he referenced the kick as “Rockette” and referring the toad to “Virgin Spring” I believe Digby, Jeff and the narrator aren’t really dangerous characters but try to be for excitement seeing as how narrator stated that he hasn’t been in a fight since the sixth grade.
2. The effect of knowing that the dead man’s name is Al is because the narrator might have a guilty conscience of knowing that he was with the dead body Al. The narrator most likely couldn’t say anything about Al’s dead body for he would most likely been accused of murdering Al. This is especially true if the narrator would have done what he felt like doing which was getting out of the car and throwing up.
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1.I think that Digby,Jeff, and the narrator are all wannabe bad boys. They are college students that are just trying to have fun and they think that they are bad but in actuality they are not. Digby has his parents paying for his college tuition and the narrator is driving his Mother’s car. The narrator also points out that he has the tire iron under his seat because all “bad boys” do but really he never uses it. They are putting on the bad boy act.
2.By learning that the dead man’s name is Al, makes it very personal because he was just some dead guy that the narrator happen to stumble upon but in the end it shows that these two girls are looking for him and you can tell that the narrator feels bad because he knows he is dead.
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The three of them were young, fearless, trouble makers, who were ready to party. Digby and Jeff are described as “dangerous characters….slick and quick… in short they were bad”. However, the narrator/driver is just pretending to be one of them. Therefore, he is perceived as a beginner (inexpert) who is under a lot of peer-pressure. Inexperienced, because he made a couple mistakes like dropping the keys and also for the reason that he had the tire iron under the front seat because bad characters keep them there and not because he ever planned on using it against anybody. It all started as an adventure to Greasy Lake and ended up in disaster. In fact, it was Digby with his reckless attitude, the one who got them in trouble. Unfortunately, the narrator ended up worn out in a filthy lake with a dead body, a chipped tooth, and a wrecked car. To sum up, he was in the wrong place with the wrong company.
For the narrator, the effect of knowing the dead man’s name, is that now he will relate the name to the unfortunate events of that day. He will think of him as “Al”, not the dead guy. Also, that he knows that the girls are seeking for Al, and that one of them has spotted him and his friends looking pretty bad, in the same place where the police will eventually find the dead body. In this sense, they could be linked to his (Al’s) death.
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1.) Digby and Jeff were both two troubled boys who were involved in the wrong scene. Their idea of a good time was indulging in alcoholic substances and smoking joints. The image they set for themselves with the worn leather jackets and toothpicks in their mouths reflected their lifestyle choices. Even though both of these characters were bad in the way they went about in life Digby seemed to be a spoiled individual who thinks everything in life comes on a silver platter and he doesn’t have to work for anything while his father pays for his tuition at Cornell. However Jeff on the other hand seemed like a “free bird” who had more than just one career goal in his life and wanted to do and be many things such as a painter/musician/head-shop proprietor. Throughout the story it was clear that Jeff was intelligent by the way he spoke, expressing his knowledge of historical figures which reflected that underneath that bad image was a person with great potential who just isn’t applying himself in the right way and instead got caught up in bad habits.
2.) After reading everything that went down that night between Jeff, Digbby and the mysterious man at Greasy lake, finding out the dead man’s name at the end made it more personal as well as more serious knowing that the dead man isn’t just a “John doe” meaning he was a man with a real identity, by the name of Al whom had a woman looking for him. It also seemed to have a great effect on Jeff and Digby knowing the dead man’s name which made it more personal and harder for them to act like nothing happened that night. The woman who came at the end of the story looking for Al represented that Al was probally of some sort of significance towards the woman and that the dead man had someone, a friend or whomever she was looking for him and was suspicious towards the battered faces of Jeff and Digby which made them feel very guilty and nervous knowing that they will be reported as the prime suspects when the woman realizes Al will never show up.
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1. Describe the personalities of Digby, Jeff, the narrator. Give some evidence from the text to support what you say.
Digby was a guy that was spoiled by his parents and who had a bad lifestyle. He thought everything he needed could be given to him by his dad without needing to work for anything at all. Jeff was another one that was a bad boy and did not even want to go to college and just wanted to become an artist of some sort. Both Digby and Jeff were involved in drugs and alcohol. The narrator is not a bad person but he’s not really as bad as he seems and is really bright. He makes many references to books and authors thus showing that he is more knowledgeable than what is really thought of him.
2. What is the effect of knowing that the dead man’s name is “Al”?
The effect of knowing the dead man’s name is that it becomes a personal matter. The people implicated in this will now see the effects of being involved in something so wrong. Also for the narrator to have seen this and not care to say anything shows that there may be something to hide and also that life will never be the same for him after seeing a dead corpse.
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1. Digby, Jeff, and the narrator’s personalities were very much alike in my opinion. I say this because they all had the same mind state when it came to attacking the man, raping the girl, hiding, and leaving the scene. Not once did any of them express feeling bad about all that they did. You could tell that is was something that they were not ashamed of and thought was cool. It amazed me at the actions they did by not having any remorse towards the bad character and hitting him with the tire iron, while thinking that he were dead, then immediately trying to rape
the girl after. This story shows the true meaning of: you are who you hang around.
2. The effects of knowing that the dead man’s name is Al, is by realizing that after everyone had left the parking lot that only the chopper was left along with the narrator’s car; which tells you that the motorcycle must have been for the dead guy in the lake. In addition, before they tried to leave the two girls that came to the lake were looking for a guy named Al and recognized the bike and claimed it as his, while also saying that he had gone missing. With that being said, it confirms that the dead guy in the lake is Al.
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1. The personality of the narrator, Digby, and Jeff all came off as arrogant, spoiled, misguided 19 year old punks. Spoiled because the narrator was able to take his mom’s car for the whole night, having no responsibility. Digby’s personality mirrored the narrator’s almost exactly the same. Digby was just as spoiled if not more than the narrator. While his father’s money goes to his Cornell education, Digby is out experimenting with drugs with his carefree youthful friends. If experimenting with drugs wasn’t misguided enough, Jeff was contemplating quitting school. To sum it all up the bunch were as arrogant as could be, “slouching with tooth picks, sneering, slick, and quick”. Digby pounding on the dash board, while Jeff is streaking his butt out the window, and the narrator driving his mom’s station wagon while rolling a joint, just another average night out with arrogant, spoiled, and misguided teenagers.
2. Knowing the dead man’s name was Al at the end gave the whole scenario significance as well as making it personal for the boys. The whole significance of the situation is neither the narrator, Digby, nor Jeff could erase from their memories of what they knew. By them knowing the dead man’s name was Al, made them even guiltier. Especially denying what they knew to the worried woman looking for Al. Meanwhile the narrator had the closest encounter with the dead body, and the shocked face of guilt he trying so desperately to hide as he realizes that the dead body he was so deeply emerged in could be Al that this woman is looking for.
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1. Jeff, Digby and the come across as three rebel young kids with no sense of direction. They are reckless, troublesome, and completely careless. They seem to be “bored” and are out looking for their definition of fun, they try to occupy themselves with consuming alcohol and doing drugs. Still that doesn’t fulfill their entertainment. They claim to be bad, careless, and that in essence they didn’t care about a thing. Unafraid of any outcome they partied and looked for trouble. The boys considered themselves badass, and most of all they thought they were so cool. They carried themselves like this until the night at greasy lake that actually showed who they really were, nothing but nineteen year children, afraid of outcomes and consequences of their actions. Scared straight.
2. The effect of knowing Al’s name strikes a cord with the narrator, it’s like adding a name to a face and now he knows who was the dead man. It makes it real to a sense and he no longer has sense of relief of not being involved. By naming his name he is now a part of because he was there.
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