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Essay Comparing The Outsiders And Catcher In The Rye

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Outsiders in Society: A Look into Young Adult Fiction and Adolescence In the cases of both S.E Hinton’s The Outsiders and J. D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye the struggle of acceptance and finding belonging in society are both predominant themes raised by the authors. Both stories center on boys on the brink of manhood who must come to terms with society’s standards, and find their places in their respective worlds. In the case of Salinger, his character Holden Caulfield faces an internal war against his view of society and fitting in with the ‘phonies’ of the world. Whereas Hinton’s Ponyboy struggles against the class system that prohibits him from experiencing a life that is flaunted in front of his face. But in the cases of both characters they are both outsiders in their own families which attributes to their heightened senses …show more content…

The Outsiders protagonist Ponyboy Curtis, is a boy barely fourteen years old exposed to a world heavily divided by social class. As a member of the lower class designated to the east side of the of the train tracks, Ponyboy has grown up at a disadvantage. The novel explores both the struggles of the ‘Socs’ and the ‘greasers’ and plays off the idea that, “things are rough all over,” (Hinton, 33). Cherry Valance so eloquently explained this to Ponyboy saying that though wealthy the socs too faced social requirements that hurt just as much as they did for the greasers. The novel centers around the murder of Bob Sheldon, a soc who had brutally beaten up Ponyboy and his best friend Johnny. The two boys flee from the scene of the crime, hopping the midnight train to Windrixville where they hid from the police for a week. The novel heavily centers on Ponyboy’s broken family, and the absence of his parents. The Curtis boys, Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry fight to remain together as a family though the odds are stacked heavily against

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