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Examples of figurative language, especially simile and metaphor, enliven “Greasy Lake” from start to finish. Figurative language adds depth to descriptions of the lake and of characters. The little island in the lake, for example, is as devoid of trees and plants that it’s “as if the air force had strafed it.” This use of figurative language not only helps readers visualize the island but also reinforces the idea that the lake is not a protected and cherished natural site but a degraded, uncared-for place. Figurative language also helps readers form mental images of the characters. When Jeff and Digby dance, they move “as if their joints worked on bearings.” When Jeff leaps on the large man’s back, the man leans over to “pee[l] Jeff from his back like a wet overcoat.” When the man goes down, the shock of the moment looms “big as a zeppelin,” until the woman’s scream hits the narrator “like all the juice in all the electric chairs in the country.”
These similes and metaphors color the story’s mood, which darkens gradually before ending in surprising splashes of light. Comparing just two uses of figurative language illustrates this shift in mood. When the narrator loses his keys, they fall into the “dark, rank, mysterious nighttime grass” where the night “puddle[s]” around his feet. Since grass cannot literally be “mysterious,” and since liquid, not darkness, forms puddles, the figurative language creates suspense as the narrator makes what he knows is the “first mistake.” But when dawn comes, the narrator sees the keys near the car, “glinting like jewels in the first tapering shaft of sunlight.” The treasure that would have helped him flee during the night was right at his feet. Seeing the keys, the narrator remarks, “There was no reason to get philosophical about it.” But the figurative language invites readers to do just that.
