Family In S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders

The theme of The Outsiders is that everyone can rise above what others expect from them. This is relevant throughout the book when Johnny and Ponyboy save the kids from the burning church, when Randy doesn't want to fight or hate the Greasers anymore, and when Johnny stands up for Cherry and Marcia.

In the novel “The Outsiders” by S.E Hinton an important theme is family and friendship. This theme is interesting because it shows us how when you’re family you come together to look after each other no matter what. The theme of friendship is also interesting because when your friends you support each other through everything and anything no matter what the consequences are. In “The Outsiders” the theme of friendship is also a main interest because despite peoples differences they can come together through a common interest or factor, which is what happens in “The Outsiders”.

The main theme of 'The Outsiders' is that friends are your chosen family. In other words, the people in your inner circle along with your family, are the friends you choose to have there. This is present with many characters in the book, in fact, the only three 'Greasers' that did not seem to have their friends closer than their family were Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry. However, these three boys had many people in their lives who loved their friends more than their family, such as Johnny, who's dad beat him, and mom neglected him, and Dally who had no relation with his parents, then there is Darry, who loves his friends like family, and he is one of the only ones that knows what true family love feels like.

In S.E Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, the main character Ponyboy and the rest of the greasers not only face conflicts with their rival gang: the Socs, but also against each other and even as society as a whole. These obstacles were created due the fact that people don't realize that everyone has problems, this is a theme that Ponyboy learns throughout this story. Just like in real life, some conflicts will never be resolved as they are beyond their control. Over the course of the novel some conflicts will be settled, while some will stay the same or even become worse.

“Bob, the handsome Soc, was lying there in the moonlight, doubled up and still. A dark pool was growing from him, spreading slowly over the blue white cement. I looked at Johnny's hand. He was clutching his switchblade, and it was dark to the hilt. My stomach gave a violent jump and my blood turned icy.” Imagine that you did something, something that you thought wasn’t that bad at the time, but you regretted it later. Something bad that caused your best friend to kill a member of a rival gang, and all of the aftermath that follows. In the novel The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, this nightmare becomes a reality. In The Outsiders there are two rival gangs: the Greasers; the poor hoodlums that live on the east side of town, and the Socs; the rich kids with more stress in their lives than you would think. The novel is told by the perspective of Ponyboy, a Greaser. There is constant conflict between these two gangs, but

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Where there is no struggle there is no strength.”This means that to be strong in life you have to go through struggle.The Outsiders is a novel written by S.E. Hinton, which is about two groups,the Greasers is the poor group that no one likes because they are hoodlums and the Socs are the wealthy group that doesn’t like Greasers.Both of these groups experience difficulties in their lives because of different purposes.The theme of the novel which is “Things are rough all over” means that both the Greasers and the Socs have different struggles but both of their struggles are really hard to handle in life.Several events from the story, as well as evidence from the article,”The

Theme Analysis of The Outsiders In S.E. Hinton’s teenage realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, Ponyboy and Johnny get into some trouble with a few Socs that ends in murder. They are on the run and stay up in an old abandoned church for a week that catches fire and has a few kids trapped in it. Which leads to the death of two main characters. Throughout S.E. Hinton’s book she implies through multiple characters that everybody has their own problems, and that just because someone has a wealthy lifestyle doesn't mean that they don't struggle.

After reading the first eight chapters of SE Hinton's The Outsiders, it becomes apparent that many of the characters have differing points of view, and these conflicting perspectives create tension Two characters that have tension are Johnny Cade and his mother Mrs.Cade. These two characters differ in opinion on whether Mrs.Cade should be allowed in the hospital room with Johnny. The tension between the two becomes especially visible when Mrs.Cade and Johnny are arguing so much that Johnny passes out. Mrs.Cade and Johnny Cade have never had the best relationship you can see that when he says (Hinton 104)

The Outsiders theme Project My personal theme statement for The Outsiders is that somebody's social class doesn't define who someone is. I choose this theme statement for two reasons; relationship between the socs and greasers, Ponyboy’s relationship with Cherry. The relationship between the Socs and greasers supports my theme because they were both going through the same struggle they just didn't know it. For example, when Randy came and talked to Ponyboy at the hospital Two-Bit said “ What’d Mr. Super-Soc have to say?”(hilton 126).

In S.C Hinton the Outsiders which takes place in the 1950s was and is about the lives of teenagers in gangs Ponyboy is fourteen years old boy who narrates the story. While some believe loyalty is the strongest theme in the Outsiders ,I argue that divided community is the strongest theme as the evidenced by descriptive language ,dialogue and, narrative. In the outsiders pony boy names 2 groups the gresser and the soc he says that the gressers are poor unlike the soc they are rich they are oppsites and they dislike each other the soc like to jump the gresers and hurt them Ponyboys friend Jonny got jumped really bad during the last rumble they had and he hates fighting and says that the next person who jumps him he

In the book The Outsiders the message being portrayed is family is not always blood. After Darry got mad at Ponyboy for walking home from the movies alone, Two-Bit told him “Next time get one of us to go with you Ponyboy, any of us will.” This shows that the gang will do anything for eachother. They have each others backs and even though they don’t always show it, they love each other. Knowing that after Johnny and Ponyboys accident in the park, Dally went out of his way to do anything he could showed he cares a lot also.

In the Outsiders a common theme, family is not always blood related, appears throughout the book. This theme is shown in three ways: the greaser´s compared to his parents, the gang’s loyalty to each other, and the affects on the gang after Johnny and Dally´s death. Johnny absolutely hates his parents even though he is blood related to them. They lack the giving and protecting nature of a common parent toward their children. Often times his dad beats him and his mom completely ignore him.

Franklin 1Caitlin FranklinCaldwellEnglish Honors 112/4/17Divided Communities in The OutsidersS.E. Hinton’s realistic novel, The Outsiders, takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1950’s. The main character, Ponyboy Curtis, struggles to see past the divided social classes. All the time, he sees his social class, the Greasers, getting picked on, bullied, and beatup by the higher social class, the Socs. Not only does he see it, but he lives it. While some believe the strongest theme of The Outsiders is family, I argue that the strongest theme is divided communities, supported by Hinton’s use of conflict, characterization and description.From the very beginning, Hinton shows the division of the Socs and Greasers when the Socs threaten and beat up Ponyboy. Hinton describes how “It occurred to me then that they could kill me,” (Hinton 5). This shows how the Socs gang up on the Greasers and how violent the situations get. Another detail that shows conflict is that even though the Greasers get beat up, they fight back. The Greasers VS. Socs fight towards the end of the book really highlights how serious the conflict of division was. After the fight, the

Novels allow readers to understand a new perspective about family. They force readers to understand that family is so important to individuals because of the support they provide. The novel ‘The Outsiders’ stresses this point by showing the difference between characters that have this support and the characters that do not. Characters that don't have family support fall apart because of their loneliness. Ponyboy is a good example for someone who has family support.

“Us Greasers need to stick together.” (page 16) One of the themes for The Outsider is family as shown with Johnny and the Curtis brothers that real family stick together if they are blood. If they are not blood the can still be family, and your real family doesn’t have to be your true family because of blood. The Outsiders is about a 14 year old boy, Ponyboy, that is a Greaser.