Unlike novels, short stories require an author to tell an interesting story with fleshed out characters. To create such a piece, the author must have a methodical approach to the words they choose. So how can the author’s choice of words shapen the devolvement of the story? Richard Ford’s story, “Under the Radar,” and T. C Boyle’s, “Greasy Lake,” are great examples of how astute word choice provide depth in establishing the setting, developing characters, and as a catalyst for how the events will unfold. T.
C Boyle’s, “Greasy Lake,” focuses on the conflicts of three 19-year olds, set in the 1960s, between their perceived self-image and the true self within. The story tells the tale of three young kids, fueled with cheap lemonflavored gin, a lingering high, and a hunger for danger. Bored on during their third night of summer vacation, the boys decide to go to the local “bad boy’s” hangout, Greasy Lake. There, the boys notice what they assume to be a friend’s vehicle, and being the dangerous characters that they are, decide to pull a prank on their friend.
This decision turned grave when they realize that they mistook their friend’s car for someone else’s. Enraged, the stranger took to violence resulting in the three boys getting into a scuffle. Things turn for the worst when the narrator decides to bash the stranger’s (who is described as “greasy”) head with a tire iron. Afterwards, the boys scatter to the murky lake, and the narrator discovers a corpse. It is at this moment that the narrator realizes that his dangerous ‘bad boy’ ways have tainted his innocence, and comes to the conclusion that being bad in not in his nature.
Richard Ford’s, “Under the Radar,” tells the tale of the falling marriage of Marjorie Reeves and her husband Steven Reeves. While on their way to a dinner party at George Nicholson’s house, Marjorie confesses to her husband about her affair with George. Upon hearing this life changing news, Steven becomes paralyzed by the rush of emotions and pulls over to the side of the road. An awkward silence fills the car, and in the blind heat of rage, Steven hits Marjorie in the face. After apologizing for striking her, Marjorie insists that Steven get out of the car to help a raccoon that had been recently run over.
Steven agrees, and Marjorie turns on the car, and in what | assume, proceeded to run him over, much like the raccoon on the road. To establish the setting, Boyle uses the cultural e of the 60’s generation and an ominous vocabulary. To convey the morals and ideas of the 1960’s American youth, Boyle uses the rebellious attitude of “We’re bad and we don’t care for anything,” and references to the war in Vietnam. The narrator often describes himself and his friends as being bad and dangerous characters, and this becomes more convincing as we read the events that unfolded in the lake.
Boyle makes subtle, yet profound references to the war in Vietnam. For example, when describing the lake, he mentions “There was a single ravaged island a hundred miles from shore, so stripped of vegetation it looked as if the air force had strafed it” (168). Boyle references Vietnam again when describing the narrator’s mistake of losing his keys “This was a tactical error, as damaging and irreversible in its way as Westmoreland’s decision to dig in at Khe Sanh” (169). Most importantly, is Boyle’s choice of words in detailing the Greasy Lake.
The lake is described as once being sacred and clean, but now an image of filth and damage “The Indians called it Wakan, a reference to the clarity of its waters. Now it was fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires” (168). The lake is used is described as having a “bad breath of decay,” (172) it is representative of the narrator and all of the youth at the lake and the decaying of their morals. The atmosphere in Ford’s story is deliberately peculiar.
Ford’s depiction of the environment during the Reeves drive to the Nicholsons’ house plays an acute role in developing the story. The strange, dimming spring twilight evening gives a mysterious and dangerous vibe. This is intentionally done to mirror the relationship between Marjorie and Steven. The Quaker Bridge Road is described as “dark and shadowy” while on the other hand, the woods are described as “[D]ense young timber, beech and alder saplings in pale leaf… Peepers were calling out from the watery lows” (20). I believe Quaker Bridge Road to be symbolic of Marjorie’s personality, and nature to be of Steven.
Further evidence of this is presented in Ford’s description of the sky “Beyond the stand of saplings was the darkened trunks, the sky was still pale yellow with the day’s light, through here on Quaker Bridge Road it was nearly dark” (20). Ford paints the scenery as a beautiful, sweet spring day, but the day is rapidly being devoured by the rising twilight. Alongside the importance of setting, the development of the characters is also crucial for telling an interesting story. The three main characters, the narrator , Digby, and Jeff are teenage rebels who enjoy the “greaser” way of life, with dangerous thrills and spills.
The boys are described as being dangerous characters, that is why they seek the lake. Despite the lake’s putrid condition, it manages to attract the ‘bad boys’ while deterring the kindhearted. The lake appeals to the boy’s thrill of danger, yet certain characteristics seem to contradict their perceived self-image. These boys aren’t greasers, they may look the role, but they do not fit it. For instance, the boys are college students early in their summer vacation. They are from middleclass families and enjoy the comfort of their parents. They use their parents’ station wagons and allow them to pay for their college tuition.
The characters want to pursue the “greaser” lifestyle without having to bear the burden of the same. They want the comfort of their homes and money and not the danger that encompasses their lifestyle choices. Ford’s character descriptions give great insight into their personality and morals. Marjorie “was a pretty, blond, convictionless girl with small demure features-small nose, small ears, small chin, though with a surprisingly full-lipped smile which she practiced on everyone” (21). Marjorie is painted in a negative light, she is drawn-out to be the antagonist of the story.
Her description implies that she is wanton and thrillful, a deadly cocktail for a wife. Marjorie wants to be everyone’s darling and to demonstrate this, Ford gives her those characteristics. On the other hand, Steven is the polar opposite of his wife. While being only twenty-eight, Steven is an incredibly boring man. Steven has a mundane job, a dull, tan Mercedes station wagon, and a mute tan suit. Their opposing personalities created a split in the relationship, resulting in Marjorie losing her bearings and having an affair with George.
George is the man Marjorie wishes her husband was, “George Nicholson was a big squash-playing, thick-chested, hairy-armed Yale lawyer who sailed his own Hinckley 61 out of Essex… ” (22). The correlation between the setting and the development of the characters is greatly amplified by the descriptive words the author chooses. However, there is a significant writing tool that is often times overlooked, symbolism. Symbolism is like the layers in a cake, and “Greasy Lake” is rich in symbolism. The symbolism in this story is used metaphorically and as means of foreshadowing.
The lake is used as the center of symbolism and emphasizes how a once pure and divine creation can be easily tainted by poor choices. When the boys arrive at Greasy Lake, a “copper” is parked along the shore, and next to it, a 57 Chevy (169). These vehicles are hotrods symbolic of true “greasers”. Furthermore, the biker, “AI,” is symbolic of consequences for action. He was a “bad boy” who made poor decisions and ended up bloated corpse in the trash-filled lake. Moreover, the murky water and corpse give the narrator an epiphany, an almost symbolic baptism.
This event is also foreshadowed during the narrator’s mistake of dropping the keys “The first mistake, the one that opened the whole floodgate… ” (169). The narrator is metaphorically cleansed by the water, giving him a sudden moment of clarity, a moment in which he realizes that he is in fact not “bad” in nature and that if he pursues this false image, then he too will end up like Al. Parallel to Boyle’s story, Ford also uses symbolism as a story telling tool, but he uses it more as a catalyst for how the events will unfold.
As previously mentioned in one of my earlier paragraphs, Ford uses the environment to symbolically represents the nature of the characters. Additionally, Ford uses symbolism to foreshadow events. For example, after struggling to regain his composure, Steven utters the words “ground clutter” confused, Marjorie dismiss it. “It was then that the headlights went off automatically” (22) this symbolically foreshadows the end of their relationship. Throughout the story, Ford references Steven’s character to the environment, for example, “[t]he dense young timber” (20) and in what I believe to be to most pivotal, the raccoon.
I believe Ford uses the raccoon as a symbolic catalyst for Marjorie and Steven’s relationship, wherein Steven is the raccoon and Marjorie the Ford pickup. The raccoon was aimlessly passing by, when suddenly it’s meet with an erupt event (similar to the reveal of the affair). The raccoon ends up getting run over by a couple of “rednecks” who laugh and cheer as the poor creature is spun and rumbled over. The “rednecks” have no regret or sympathy for the creature, alike Marjorie having no remorse for her affair. Ultimately, Steven suffers the same fate as the raccoon, left for dead and forgotten.
