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…
of town. The greasers' rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the "West-side rich kids." This young forthteen young old boy named ponyboy he struggles right and with wrong in society in which he believes he is an outsider. Ponyboy narrates the novel, and this narration is a catharsis for him. The reader is able to see the changes in Pony's viewpoints as he is dealing with many issues that are common in an adolescent's life. The most powerful issue is that life is not fair. From the deaths of his parents, to the economic conditions that cast them as greasers, to the deaths of his friends, life is not fair to Ponyboy. Pony struggles with his expectations for Soda.
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…
parents. Literary references occur throughout The Outsiders, helping us understand how the characters in the novel view themselves and those around them.
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
and throw beer blasts for kicks. Hinton descriptively stresses the colors of the characters' eyes, hair, and even clothing, as well as their environment. Generally, she associates warm colors with the Socs and cool colors with the greasers. Warmth usually is equated with inside and cool is associated with outside, and the colors reflect the characters' positions in society: The greasers view the Socs as insiders and themselves as outsiders. Finally, the book ends using the exact words that it began with. This is a symbol of the journey that Ponyboy has been on. It shows that he was able to work through all of the destruction that occurred throughout the story. It provides symmetry in the novel as well.
Ponyboy was a bad kid, he fought against Socs and he even smoked a weed, which is a cigarette. Later on he got into worse trouble and had to hide. He wanted to change and be a different person. While he hid he was scared and frightened and was beginning to think of how he was doing in life, and his thoughts were not very well. After the church incident, he began to change a little.
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.
Ponyboy explains that, “We get jumped by the Socs. I’m not sure how you spell it, but it’s the Socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids. It’s like the term, ‘Greaser,’ which is used to class all us boys on the East Side,” (Hinton 2). This quote tells the reader that Ponyboy lives on the East Side, making him a Greaser. Pony says that Socials are the enemies of Greasers. The Socials, or Socs, are rich, so they live on the West Side. In The Outsiders, Holling tells the reader that “you’d come to my house- which my father had figured out was right smack in the middle of town. Not on the north side. Not on the south side. Just somewhere in between,” (Schmidt 3). The sides in Holling’s town are opposite to the ones in Pony’s town. Holling’s town has north and south sides, while Ponyboy’s town has east and west sides. Also, Holling lives in The Perfect House. This means that Holling’s house is perfect; everything is clean, the house is freshly painted, and the furniture looks untouched. Ponyboy lives in a small house, which is dirty and messy; the opposite of Holling’s
The Outsiders is a book about Greasers And Socs. The Greasers are the poor east side kids they would wear their hair long and greasy and they will dress in blue jeans, T-shirts, or wear they shirttails out and wear a leather jacket and tennis shoes or boots. The Socs are the rich west side kids that worn nice clothes, drove nice cars, and had all the pretty lady’s. They both was gangs in Oklahoma. The Socs they would jump Greasers, wreck houses, and throw beer blasts for kicks.
Showing that Ponyboy was very inexperienced and thought Mickey Mouse Sodas horse was just like Soda and they were brothers.Thirdly, we see how some actions Ponyboy’s gang does help show the need for childhood innocence like when pony says,” Darrel, who we call Darry, works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture,” (Hinton 3). Darry is only 20 and he has a job working on roofs he works so hard so he can care for his brothers Soda and Ponyboy he has no time to be a kid himself he is working like a man when he is only a child.While some believe the main theme is brotherly love I argue its preserving childhood innocence. While this is a good point, because Ponyboy’s group definitely sticks up for one another in a brotherly fashion, it lays a strong foundation for preserving childhood innocence. Jonny had never been a coward he was a good man in a rumble, (Hinton 34) this shows how has Johnny loses his innocence, he becomes fearful of the Soc’s and begins to carry a switchblade to keep his gang safe, you might think this shows brotherly love, but it also shows preserving childhood innocence because when Johnny got used to being targeted by the Soc’s he lost his innocence, that’s why he would carry stuff like switch blades to keep him and others safe from the Soc’s. While the Greasers grew up they lost more and more of their innocence to rumbles and hatred of the Soc’s.
The Outsiders identified the 60’s, often there would be violence between groups and often involving a group’s social class. For instance, the tensions between the Socs and Greasers is violent, and this will lead to Bob’s death, Johnny’s death, as well as many injuries throughout both gangs. The book The Outsiders is written by S.E. Hinton and is portrayed through the eyes of a high school student in Tulsa, OK where S.E. Hinton grew up. Hinton began writing The Outsiders in 1965 at the age of 17 and the book was finally published in 1967 when she was 19. The difference in perspective upon the society and social class creates issues throughout The Outsiders and they assume the problems will be solved with violence,
Ponyboy was described as sensitive and emotional for many reasons. One example is when Ponyboy, Darry, and Soda find out that Johnny may die. On page 102, Ponyboy says, “I was trembling. A pain was growing in my throat, and I wanted to cry, but greasers don’t cry in front of strangers.” Clearly, this shows that Ponyboy is emotional when it comes to losing people close to him. Another example is when he picks up the pieces of glass from the bottle he broke, to threaten the Socs. On page 171, Two-Bit tells Ponyboy that he is not like the rest of the Greasers, he isn’t hard or tough. Therefore, it shows that Ponyboy is caring and not as mean and hard as the rest of the Greasers. From these examples, it is clear that Pony is sensitive and softer than the rest of the gang.
Ponyboy and others know subconsciously that they need to hammer away. Through dreadful living conditions, family issues, and the deaths of friends, they just chip away until they can’t no more. When the end is there in the distance they all lean on each other and support the others. Ponyboy and his family endure through the thick and the thin. S.E. Hinton shows this so perfectly and inspires the rest of the world to do so. At the end of the day, the reader can understand how important it is to persevere through
His parents died when he was young. He was nurtured by his older brothers. Pony has to struggle at the bottom of the social ladder. Like the people around him, he has to fight, steal and scare little kids. However, Pony remained a pure heart, a golden heart. He only fights when he has to defend himself. He kept his heart of sympathy, understanding of others and think for the others. Like in when the church was burned, he understands the situation of the teacher and children. So he risked his life to safe the kids. The most straight forward example and conclusion of Pony’s good heart is the word of Johnny, “Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold…” Moreover, Ponyboy is a thinker. He can think for the opposite side of his gang, the Socs. Although the Socs almost drowned him, he can still understand the Socs and didn’t be blinded by the hate. He in the chaos and impulsive world can see through the surface of the conflict and see the core of the world that people are the same. That is really amazing and Ponyboy does have the board mind of 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
2. The title of this book relates to the story, because in the book, Ponyboy and Johnny are “outsiders.” They can be thought of as Outsiders because they are labeled Greasers although they do not act like hoodlums, like the rest of the Greasers. They are thought of as Greasers just because they live on the East Side of town, and because they slick back their hair. But Ponyboy and Johnny are different then all of the other Greasers because they show their emotions, and are sensitive.
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.
He is told “you’re too young” to be smoking by Jerry. Ponyboy doesn’t realise that he’s too young because he’s use to seeing all of his peers smoking, provoking him to think that it’s normal. Another example would be that all his mates had a reason to fight in the rumble, this caused him to wonde why he fought in the first place if it wasn’t for self defense. Sometimes the problem with having a peer group, can be that those around the individual can start to cause peer pressure.
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
The Outsiders is about the life of a 14-year-old boy. The book tells the story of Ponyboy “Curtis” and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Ponyboy and his two brothers, Darrel (Darry), who is 20, and Sodapop, who is 16, have 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 of town. The greasers' rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the "West-side rich kids."