The Importance of Setting

The path to becoming an adult is lined with a change of childhood and adolescent get winds, some more painful than others. In T. Coraghessen Boyles short story, oleaginous Lake, Boyle masterfully uses the setting and the protagonists experience to teach us an old but vital lesson those who choose non to learn and grow from their past mistakes argon destined to repeat them, and then will never mature and hold their true potential.At the beginning of the story, the briny character (who also happens to be the narrator) depicts his adolescence as a judgment of conviction when ingenuitywent out of style, when it was good to be icky, when you cultivated decadence like a taste (621). The terzetto thought of themselves as dangerous characters, riding roughly town wreaking havoc. However, it seems unclear to the main character and his two friends that in reality, they are not actu altogethery lousy characters. Really bad characters dont drive their parents whining station wagons ( 621) or read intellectual French novels by Andre Gide.Boyle gives us a general thought that these three boys are hardly your ordinary, every mean solar day, misguided juvenile delinquents with an unclear view of what it really means to be a man. Later in the story, the narrator depicts a scene at the main setting of Greasy Lake. There, the three boys provoke who is described as the very bad character (623). The events that took place led the three to realize the ugly truth they are nothing more than just three kids on an adventure for the night little did they know what was in butt in for them.After a lengthy description of the fight that took place between the quadruplet characters, the three boys find themselves attempting to rape the girl that was accompanying the very bad character. Luckily, before they can go any farther, another vehicle pulls into the scene, scaring the boys as the flee away. They all run in different directions, leaving them all separated from each other . The main character, with no place else to hide, plunges into the greasy lake.The pissing is completely contaminated it was fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glaze over and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires (622). The setting of Greasy Lake contributes to the plot in a finger of the troubles of the three teenage boys. Much of the story takes place at Greasy Lake, which is not an ordinary, everyday, swimming with the family type of lake. There are crowded trees, which draws a picture of a dark forest with very little sapless seeping through. The island in the middle of the lake has little or no vegetation, giving the reader a feeling of death.It is also littered with things such as beer cans, broken glass, and bonfire remains. These are items that make you think of loss of control, violence, or even destruction. These ideas could surely lead to something bad happening. The water itself is described as fetid and murky (622). There are two different aspects of time to consider when looking at Greasy Lake. First of all, there is the situation that it is 2 a. m. The middle of the night is commonly a time of day when bad things occur. It is probably considered that the good, peaceful people are at foot in bed.Therefore, if someone is up and about they are most possible wreaking havoc. Secondly, there is the year that the story takes place. It was written in the eighties, and it takes place in a time when it was good to be bad (621). Therefore, it is likely that something bad is sure to occur. The setting also serves a very important suggest to most stories by evoking a certain atmosphere. Work Cited Boyle, T. Coraghessan. Greasy Lake. 621 Kirszner, Laurie G. , and Stephen R. Mandell, eds. literature Reading, Writing. 8th ed. Boston Wadsworth, 2013 Print.