Social Classes In The Outsiders

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is about two social classes (the greasers and the socs) and what separates them. The story is told from the perspective of a fourteen year old greaser named Ponyboy Curtis. “Greasers” are one of the two social classes. They are the poorer of the two, and though both classes are usually misjudged because of how they look, the greasers often get the worst of it. “Socs”, the other one of the social classes, are rich and upper-class, and they’re expected to be the victims, not the persecutors, even though socs frequently beat up greasers and cause damage. Ponyboy does not like being classified as a greaser, nor does he like the stereotypes that come along with it. The book is about fighting against stereotypes, because

The time period of The Outsiders also affected the characters because of different laws than the ones we have today, and the influence of different artists and people, which had great impact on how people saw them. Also, the division of the East and West sides cause the stereotypes of greaser’s and socs to become even more prominent. Both greasers and socs’ came from home environments that were ‘broken’, abusive, or ignorant.The overall environment of both socs and greasers impacted their success and happiness.

The Outsiders is set in the 1960’s. This time period impacted the plot because of the different trends, such as greasy hair or madras shirts, and the different laws from our time period now. Also, artists such as Elvis Presley, Paul Newman, and The Beatles, impacted the way greasers and socs dressed, acted, and what they did. As said by Ponyboy: “I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman - he looks tough and I don’t” (Hinton 1). Ponyboy wanted to look like Paul Newman, because Ponyboy is a greaser and they are supposed to look tough. This shows that because he is a greaser, Ponyboy feels the need to conform to the stereotypical “tough” greaser look. The socs also

Socs, or the upper class, live on the West side, while greasers reside on the East side. The division of the East and West sides pushes greasers and socs even farther into their harmful stereotypes. As an example: “Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped” (Hinton 2). This will have an effect on the greaser’s happiness because they have to be scared to walk alone, which means they are most definitely not happy. This shows the division of ow the West and East side because Greasers can’t even walk alone on their own territory without the fear of being beaten up. This divides the social classes further because they become another way to classify greasers and socs, for example the socs are described as, “the jet set, the West-side rich kids” (Hinton 2). and as Ponyboy says about the greasers, “the term greaser is used to class all us boys on the East side” (Hinton 2). Now, the greasers and socs are even more separated by the places they live. The West side no represents socs and rich kids, whilst the East side represents greasers and hoods. Another example of this is when Johnny says, “‘What are greasers doing this far East?” (Hinton 54). The fact that Johnny was questioning Ponyboy, and that he was surprised by this fact, proves that there is a large boundary between the two classes. Also, entering a rival territory could get you beat up or worse, for example