In today’s world, acceptance is necessary. Whether it’s between social classes or
races. In the book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, this concept is explored. In this
coming-of-age novel Hinton astutely depicts how tragedy and knowledge can bring a
group together. She also cleverly interprets the struggle of teenagers to exist in society
that seems designed to dismiss them. Reading this novel will encourage you to look at
people and the world differently.
Hinton has received awards for The Outsiders and her many other novels. In
1988, she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Young Adult Library
Services Association (YALSA) because of her 4 young adult novels. This award is only
given to an author who YALSA believes…show more content… The main character, Ponyboy
Curtis, is writing this for a better grade in his English class. The assignment he’s writing
is describing the past two weeks of his life. He begins the essay by explaining what first
happened in a two-week period. He says “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight
from the darkness of the movie house, I had two thing on my mind: Paul Newman and a
ride home.”(3) Throughout the first chapter of the novel, Ponyboy describes his friends
who are like family to him and he also describes his literal family. He describes Dallas
Winston, Johnny Cade, Steve Randle, and Keith “Two Bit” Matthews. His brothers, who
are also in the gang, are Darrel “Darry” Curtis, and Soda (pop) Curtis. By the way,
Ponyboy and his friends are apart of a gang, the “greasers”, that oversees the poor
Eastern side of Oklahoma. The Greasers are rivals to the gang the Socials (or Socs) who
live in the rich Western part of Oklahoma.
The Socials are a gang of rich children who receive whatever they want from their
parents. They feel like that because if their social status, they have the right to do…show more content… This ill-defined reason caused a few tragedies in the novel.
The mentioned tragedies helped define the novel and the theme that life isn’t fair. Along
with the Socs, Ponyboy and his friends encounter many trials and difficulties in figuring
out where they belong in life. These boys feel as if the are “outsiders” in life and haven’t
been dealt the right card, hence the name of the book.
In those two weeks of Ponyboy’s life, he describes the tragedies and troubles he
encounters. In the most important misfortune, Ponyboy and his best friend, Johnny Cade,
realize that their rival with the Socs is arbitrary. Johnny is a quiet boy. He acts as the
gangs “pet.” After being beaten severely by a group of Socs, he became quite jumpy.
Ponyboy said he was “ scared of his own shadow.”(5) But, while trying to run away from
their troubles, Johnny says “Stay Gold Ponyboy. Stay Gold . . .”(126) This is very
important to the story. When Johnny tells Ponyboy this, he’s telling him to keep his
youthful innocence and not get caught up in useless rivalries. He helped Ponyboy to see
that all their fighting was useless and being in a gang is going to get him nowhere in