In T. C. Boyle's transcendent short story "Greasy Lake," the eponymous lake reflects the boys' evolution from naive greasers to enlightened, mature adolescents. As the story begins, the boys relish their bad boy image as they go to Fat Lake to drink gin and smoke Reefer. However, as the story progresses, and they find themselves in the lake, hiding from what they perceive to be sinister people, the boys are baptized and ultimately transformed as a result of their misadventure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Early on, the boys drive to the lake, wanting to smoke and drink and act like the bad guys they think they are. They are all students who consider themselves bad boys because they are exceptionally immature: "We wore torn leather jackets," the narrator says, "slouched over with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffing glue and grease." 'ether' (Paragraph 3). One of the boys, Digby, “allows” his father to pay for his education at Cornell (paragraph 3). The other, Jeff, was considering leaving school so he could pursue a career as a “painter/musician/store manager” (paragraph 3). In other words, he wants to pursue a career that involves little money and no good. But more importantly, Jeff's desired career path reflects both his own immaturity and his idealistic, dreamy, even naive attitude. In other words, Jeff's desired career path is symbolic of his lifestyle: immature, reckless, careless, and ignorant. At this point, the boys have not yet entered the lake and are not yet baptized. In other words, they are stuck in their old habits and have no reason to change, because why fix something that (supposedly) isn't broken? Nevertheless, they arrive at the lake and see who they think is their friend. "Tony Lovett's Car" (par. 6). They flash their lights at the car, and a very bad character and his girlfriend get out; the group of boys fight with the bad character. Eventually, they knocked out with a tire iron and almost raped the girl he was with After that, the boys go from fake greasers to real scoundrels. Instead of pretending to be criminals, they become criminals. represents another step in the journey these characters take to the lake, and in their overall transformation from fake greasers to enlightened, mature teenagers. The final step in the boys' journey from fake tough guys to more mature young men comes after a. car comes at the group as the boys attack the man and almost rape the girl The boys flee because they think the cops are after them They were panicked because they didn't know where to go when they decided to. venture into the depths of the murky lake. But before reaching the lake, they encounter a dead biker. Even if they don't know it, the people who arrested them were looking for the aforementioned deceased. Nevertheless, the boys wait in the water until dawn, half afraid, until they come out of the water, are baptized and change. This alteration is visible after the boys leave the lake and are confronted by a group of girls who "hand out a handful of pills in glass packages" and ask the boys to "do some of these things with [her] and Sarah (para. 44). ). The boys refuse, saying “No thanks” and “Another time” (par. 44). Before their experience at the lake, the boys would undoubtedly have used drugs; however, after their.