payment page
The narrator is a man looking back over some years to the summer of his nineteenth year. He recalls vividly what happened at Greasy Lake and what he felt and thought during the events, and he has had ample time to reflect on what occurred. He incorporates these reflections into the narrative so that readers can both sympathize with the cocky nineteen-year-old and also appreciate the wiser adult who tells the story.
The nineteen-year-old narrator and his buddies see themselves as “dangerous characters” who don’t care about anything. The narrator is rebellious in a way that, at the time, makes him feel strong and in charge. The three friends seem oblivious that tough, independent people don’t rely on parents for tuition, housing, and transportation, but the narrator, looking back, wryly includes these details. His nineteen-year-old self is on the cusp of realizations about life—its burdens and obligations, and its tenuous and changeable nature. The epiphanies about his potential to do evil and his inevitable mortality that he experiences at Greasy Lake aren’t something he can fully grasp in the moment. The years that have passed since that June night provide time for the narrator to reflect on these realizations and make sense of what happened during the emotionally charged hours at the lake.
Both versions of the narrator—the young man and the older man—are compelling characters. The narrator willingly engages in life and is honest about his actions and motivations even when they are flawed. He’s a tough guy, as a youth, but more reflective in maturity, an apparently trustworthy narrator for a coming-of-age story that leaves its protagonist exhausted, tearful, and wondering whether, instead of going forward into adulthood, it might be better to return to his childhood home and crawl into bed.
