Throughout the course of the story of greasy lake how do the young men experience a crisis of identity?

One of the major themes in the short story is the idea of identity and masculinity. The main character and his friends all try to be someone they are not and they try to appear much tougher that they are in reality. The reason why the adolescence wanted to show that they are tougher was to prove their masculinity and their self-worth. For them, the only way they could do that was to try and appear more dangerous than they were in reality. Thus, their actions were the result of their own feelings of incompetence and the result of their desire to be respected by those around them.