The Outsiders Essay

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The Outsiders by S.E. hilton is a book about A teenager named ponyboy and his two brothers named darry and sodapop. The main plot about the story is about ponyboy going threw a lot of still with him and his brothers and friends being in a gang with a whole lot of violence and them fighting with the cops. Then ponyboy and his friend johnny got into with another gang and end up killing one of them then they ran away with some help with a fellow gang member darrel. Ponyboy and his two brother had recently lost their parents in an automobile accident. Pony and Soda are allowed to stay under Darry's guardianship as long as they all behave themselves. The boys are greasers, a class term that refers to the young men on the East Side, the poor side …show more content…

He is self-conscious about the fact that Soda has dropped out of school, and he wants him to finish his education. Soda did not do well in school, did not like school, and is perfectly content to work in a gas station. A job he loves. Soda also believes that he is doing the right thing by helping to support his family. Pony doesn't care about any of those facts, he just wants Soda to go back to school. Gang relationships are included in the theme of family love. Ponyboy's gang members need the support and security that they find in the gang. The home life situations that these boys find themselves in are often abusive. They have turned to the gang for the love and support that should have come from …show more content…

Ponyboy first alludes to a work of literature in Chapter 1, when he compares himself to Pip from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Ponyboy identifies with Pip because he, like Pip, is orphaned, impoverished, and struggling to make sense of the world. Literature not only creates a bond between Ponyboy and the other characters, as when he discusses books with Cherry and reads to Johnny, but it also creates a cyclic premise for the narrative itself. The timeline of this story has several inconsistencies. For example, the brothers' parents passed away eight months prior to the beginning of this novel. Hinton states that Darry is 20 years old and has missed out on college because of his responsibility to his brothers. Eight months ago would have possibly made Darry 19, but he should have already started college by that time. Also, the text isn't clear about when the boys joined the greasers. An outsider sees things differently than someone who is directly involved in a way of life. The East Side greasers are "outsiders" to the West side of town, the "rich" side. To an outsider, West-side life can look very appealing, but it is unappreciated by the Socs who live there. Ponyboy says of the greasers, "We're poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we're wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses

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