“They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking for a place to belong.” In both of S. E. Hinton’s books, “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish”, the main characters struggle to find a way of fitting into society. Both books incorporate different characters, problems, solutions, decisions, choices, consequences, and ways of life. “The Outsiders” focuses on the life of an intelligent 14 year old boy living in a divided town with divided communities and different groups of people where everyone is loyal to his or her “gang”. “Rumble Fish” features a reckless fourteen year old boy who has to face his tough, bitter life filled with poverty and loneliness all alone. Both characters deal with similar problems different ways, valuing different things or people, and end up with different consequences and results. The choices they made were caused by the environment they lived in and their way of thinking about things. …show more content…
Life wasn’t so great for Ponyboy, especially since bullying Socs (Socials), rich people from the West side of town, are always trying to harm greasers. Ponyboy is standing in the middle of a major conflict between the Greasers and Socs, unsure of how to stop it. “Greasers can't walk alone too much or they'll get jumped…We get jumped by the Socs…it's the abbreviation for the Socials, the West-side rich kids. It's like the term "greaser," which is used to class all us boys on the East Side.” The two teams in this war have many big differences, from the way they look to the reputations they have in the eyes of the world and also the things they like doing. Having big differences in everything and living in two different worlds causes violence and hate between the two groups. They keep battling on and on but there’s no real winner because everyone is loyal to his or her
In S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders Socs and Greasers are enemies. Society put them against each other and labeled them. Greasers are the poor, dirty, no-good kids that nobody wants around. Socs are stuck-up, perfect, rich kids who looks down on everybody. In the book, two boys- Johnny and Ponyboy- start some trouble with a couple of Socs, and Bob is killed. They have to run from the police, all while the tension between Greasers and Socs is thicker than ever. Throughout the novel, it explains how “things are rough all over”. The Greasers have it the worse because they feel emotions so harshly, they are constantly getting jumped by the Socs, and they only have each other because their families are broken.
In the book The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy, along with his brothers and friends, has to face the daily struggles of being a greaser among the Socs. This fiction book focused on Ponyboy’s life and the problems he ran into with the Socs. He and his gang of friends had fights with the Socs that happened often, and had to deal with a Soc being killed by one of the Greasers, though it was an act of self defense. The three topics addressed in this intriguing novel are the fight between rich and poor, the power of friendship, and what it means to be a hero.
The book The Outsiders is the realistic story about this between two very different groups in a town in the United States: the poor Greasers from the east side, and the Socs, whitch is what the greasers call the socials, the richer boys from the other side of the town. Ponyboy Curtis is the narrator of the story, a 14-year-old boy who lives with his two older brothers, Darry and Soda. He is a pretty good athlete and student, but is not treated the same as the richer students at his school. Ponyboy uses to have long hair that he greases back, a symbol of being in the outsider gang. He is unhappy with his situation, because Darry is too protective of him and he always has to be afraid of Socs attacking him.
Both of these books are centered around three young boys going through many trials and tribulations throughout their young adult life. All six of these boys have lost their parents in tragic accidents; that ended up changing the way these boys grew up and the path that they later chose. The book The Outsiders is surrounding three boys by the names of Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry. Darry who is the oldest of the three boys begins to take on responsibility of taking care of his three younger brothers. These boys all end up taking a bad path in life, which resulted in joining a gain and the gain, became their family, somewhat of a filler for what they have lost in their real families home.
In chapter one we are introduced to our narrator, Ponyboy. Ponyboy is raised by his two older brothers Darry and Soda. They’re all apart of a gang called the “greasers” which is joined by Dally, Johnny, Two-bit, and Steve. There is another group called “ socs” which stands for socials, and everyone in that group is very wealthy. One day Ponyboy got jumped by a socs group, but luckily Darry was there to help before anything too serious happened. The first element of literature is characterization. Ponyboy is a keen observer, trying to make sense of the complexities of those around him. At the beginning of the story, he stops and spends several pages giving us brief character description on Steve, Two-Bit, Dally, and Johnny. This is also known as direct characterization. He tells us that Steve is "cocky and smart" ( Hinton 9). Two-Bit can 't stop joking around and goes to school for "kicks" (Hinton 10) rather than to learn. Dallas, he says, is "tougher, colder, meaner" ( Hinton 10) than the rest of them.
The Outsiders and The Wednesday Wars deal with misunderstandings among young people in the 1960’s and show how people can form friendships despite their differences. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is about two rival gangs, the Greasers and Socs. Ponyboy Curtis and some Greasers befriend Cherry Valance, a Soc. She spies on the Socs and helps out the Greasers. Ponyboy and his friend, Johnny Cade, become involved with the killing of a Soc, so they run away to an abandoned church. When the church catches on fire, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their friend Dallas Winston, save a few children who were trapped in the burning building. Johnny gets injured during the process and later dies. The boys are mentioned in the newspaper as heroes. The
The Socs were just trying to get under Ponyboy’s skin because he isn’t friends with them, and the Socs just want to get him mad. “Hey, grease. One said… We’re gonna do you a favor, greaser. We’re gonna cut all that long greasy hair off.” They threatened him for being a Greaser and this shows how they don’t like Greasers. The quote shows that Soc’s bully the greasers for being poor and having trashy hair. The Socs are basically just pestering and taunting him for no reason except for he’s not one of their kind and he’s poor and a
In the book The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton, the lower-class, known as the Greasers, and the upper-class, known as Socs, deal with the animosity and daily struggles they have with each other. The novel focuses on the struggles and experiences with being an outsider to society and coping with the rich side of town through Ponyboy’s eyes. His life changes when tensions rise and many tragic things happen to the Greasers and Socs that will create agony in many but heroes in a few. The three topics addressed in this compelling novel are the fight between the rich and the poor, the power of friendship, and what it means to be a hero.
After all, they are the “out” group— the clique that society condones. Ponyboy, the protagonist, also identifies himself as part of them. While reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, he felt Pip, the main character reminded him of the greasers–”the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn’t a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him” (Doc B). Greasers are lookeed down opon in society becuase they aren’t rich, and the image associated with them is negative. They are believed to be a general menace to society; people think they all steal stuff for kicks, attack innocent bystanders for no reason, and are uneducated hoodlums. They are outsiders to society as a whole. Pony, no matter how smart or talented he may be, will always be treated as an outsider by the Socs just because he’s a
Ponyboy was walking home from the theaters and he got jumped. The socs surrounded him and it was an unfair fight for Ponyboy. The Greasers carry around knives to protect themselves. “ I had seen Johnny after four socs got hold of him, and it wasn't pretty.” (4). This shows that the Greasers have to be careful and always be on the lookout for socs so they don't get jumped.
“You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you're a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don't stick up for them, stick together, make like brothers, it isn't a gang any more.” In S.E Hinton’s “The Outsiders,” living life as a greaser is impossible without others there, watching your back and protecting you, like a family- a community. The Outsiders is about a boy named Ponyboy who lives in Oklahoma city in the mid 1960’s. He lives in a house with his two brothers, Darry and Sodapop since his parents died in a car crash at a young age. Ponyboy, along with his brothers, are part of a gang called the Greasers, and they’re known for being “bad” and breaking the rules. Another gang in Oklahoma is the Socs and they’re the Greasers rich rivals. The novel's main focal point is the idea of community. A community is a group of people sharing common characteristics and spending large amounts of
.E. Hinton’s novel, “The Outsiders,” takes place around the 1960’s in a small town. Pony boy is known as a Greaser, with his greasy hair, bad boy clothing, and him and his other Greaser friends living on the poor side of town. One lesson the story suggests is that even though things get rough, they are always there for each other.Pony boy, a fellow Greaser, is different from his peers. He is quite intelligent in school, but a little unsure with his common sense. All of his peers have sharp thinking when it comes down to rumbling with the Socs and Pony boy is not really the violent type. Even though Pony boy is seen as a wimp like young man, his buddies still take up for him no matter what. “You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do...If you don’t stick up for
Conflicts are present in everyday life, whether they are at work, school, or at home. Some people may have worse conflicts than others depending on their environment and surroundings. In “The Outsiders” by S. E. Hinton, Ponyboy and his friends face many different types of conflicts because of who other people think they are and their position in society. They are from the East Side of New York and are called “greasers”, or poor, by the wealthier people. The characters in “The Outsiders” overcome conflicts that are out of their control, like “Man vs. Society”, “Man vs. Self” and “Man vs. Man”.
Empathy is the ability to be able to see things through another person's perspective and the key to seeing past stereotypes. Empathy is the true theme to “The Outsiders” because ultimately it was the resolution for the dissension faced by Pony’s family, gang and himself. In the book, the residents of the town live in a hierarchical society and are divided by their appearance, social class, and money. Their obsession with competing about appearances and class status highlighted the shallowness of their enmity towards one another. The Socs and Greaser’s mutual hostility was fueled on stereotypes and prejudice. However, there were certain characters in the book who were able to push past the labels and see the person for who they truly were on the inside and not by the amount of grease they put in their hair or they type of cars they drove. Ultimately, S.E Hinton conveyed empathy as the true theme to “The Outsiders” because it was the resolution for the dissensions faced by Ponyboy’s family, gang, and even himself.
Typically, greasers are depicted as people similar to hoods, as Ponyboy states, "Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while" (Hinton 4). Yet, even though Ponyboy is a greaser, he avoids getting into trouble for the sake of staying together with his family. He explains that, "I don't mean I do things like that... Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together only as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can, and we're careful not to get caught when we can't" (Hinton 4). Alternatively, Pony also enjoys activities such as reading and watching movies. Even simpler things, such as sunsets and clouds, are something he found beauty and enjoyment in. This sets him apart from the greasers because according to Pony, he states that, "And nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do" (Hinton 3). Since nobody other than Ponyboy himself shares the enjoyment of these particular pastimes, which is drastically different from pursuits such as shoplifting and fighting in rumbles, Ponyboy is divergent from the standard attributes of the greasers. Therefore, Ponyboy is a thoughtful and dreamy individual who holds different interests and aspirations than the