On Monday, I opened the front doors to my school and was hit with a wave of voices and bickering from all sides of me. There was a semi-large group of people gathered around a newspaper page hung on the wall. After pushing through the group to see the newspaper, i recognized the two boys shown on the picture. It was Johnny and Ponyboy, both running frantically around a church engulfed in flames. This had been the talk of the town lately, how a couple of greasers rescued children from a burning building. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation running through the group. Everyone was talking about how greasers could do something so heroic. But instead of sounding surprised, or even grateful the children were alive, they were calling Johnny and Ponyboy terrible things I don’t want to even begin to remember. Why? They’d been so brave, running into a burning building like that to save those children. Anyone else would’ve let them burn in there. …show more content…
Them being greasers doesn’t automatically mean they can’t be good people. Under those hood-like clothes and over-greased hair, they were good people. Maybe the Socs were the bad ones, judging the greasers like they do. Looks aren’t everything. Sure, there are some bad greasers, but what can you expect? They live in a bad part of town. There are bad Socs too. But that doesn’t mean everyone is bad. I wish people would just take a moment to realise that these labels are only hurting people. Someday, the world will understand this. People like Ponyboy will show them. Not everyone is as they seem on the
They also get in fights and some of the Greasers jump people also. An example from the book is Dally. Dally is sort of a bad example of a good person from the Greasers in this book. Dally used to jump people and he has gotten into many fights and brawls before. Another example is Johnny. Little innocent Johnny had committed a huge crime which was killing someone. During the Greasers and Socs battles nobody has ever killed someone before but Johnny did for a good reason which was to save Ponyboy. This is still a major crime that someone should be punished for and Johnny later did in the worst way possible, death. Darry has also got into a few fights before like the one during the fight between Socs and Greasers but everybody did including Sodapop and Ponyboy. So not all the Greasers are perfect but could you really blame
In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. HINTON the main character Ponyboy’s identity changes multiple times over the text. In the beginning of the story Ponyboy was introduced as a greaser, a greaser is someone who is usually poorer than the middle class and like to screw around and start gang fights and they are considered hoods as stated on pages 2-3, “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, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace almost like hoods.” this shows that even though the Socs are much more wild the greasers are still considered the bad crazy hood people. Ponyboy didn’t like being a greaser
The Johnny gasped and turned white as a ghost then red with rage. While all of the other boys were looking at the Ponyboy who was drowning, Johnny pulled a knife out of his back pocket, I gasped I knew what he was going to do seconds before he did it. “Wait!” I screamed, but the boy didn’t even acknowledge me. I turned around, I couldn’t watch. This reminded me too much of Yaqui beating me up, but this was different, these boys fought unlike we did. The way we fought it wasn’t killing each other or anything like that, but it was almost worse. Being humiliated in front of the whole school. Both Ponyboy and I got hurt though mine was both mentally and physically. The only other thing that I could see that connected our two lives was that we both fought back. Well actually Johnny fought for Ponyboy, but it’s pretty much the same, in the end the bullies both got what they deserved. No, that’s not true, nobody (even Yaqui Delgado) deserves to die. By the time I turned back around the boys were driving away in their car and the boy who had been killed was slumped on the ground not moving. The other boy; Johnny was helping to pull his friend; Ponyboy out of the water
The Greasers think that all the Soc’s have it easy because they have money and their privledged. The Soc’s think Greasers are poweless because they don’t have a lot of money, So the Soc’s feel entitled. The greasers risk their lives to help others and eachother. Such as when Ponyboy and Johnny went into the church that was up in flames to save 8 children from the fire. For example “We dropped the last of the kids out
Hello everyone, thank you all for coming to remember Johnny. Most of you know me as Cherry Valance, and even though i didn't know johnny as much as i knew ponyboy, losing johnny has been one of the hardests deaths for me to process. Before you say anything, I loved bob and it's hard to go through the process of losing him. This has been horrible because of how much he meant to me. But losing johnny hit me in some other way, a way that has made me rethink all my decisions and how the socs treated the greasers, how i treated the greasers. I could treat the greasers so horrible sometimes until the night i met johnny and ponyboy at the drive in movie theatre.
All I ever thought about was the time I almost killed a kid. His names Johnny, Johnny Cade. He was an innocent little boy, he had dark eyes along with dark hair. He had tan skin and was the smallest out of all his friends. I was with my buddies in my blue Mustang, and we saw him walking. Us socs are the high class and we wear nice, expensive clothes and live in big houses and have nice cars. Then there's the greasers who wear old hand-me-downs and live in crappy houses and don't have very good families or a lot of money. You see, there's a lot of tension between us. It’s fun for the socs like me to jump the greasers, I guess it doesn't do anything for us but we just get a kick out of it. I'm really not a bad guy but I try to act tough, which
The rain had just stopped pouring, and we had all gathered in a park nearby, as a makeshift memorial for Johnny. It wasn’t really a funeral, we didn’t have the budget for that, and it wasn’t like his parents cared enough to give him a proper goodbye.
Randy confides in a Pony boy at a moment of raw self reflection stating, “I wouldn’t have. I would have let those kids burn to death” (123). Here in this moment of doubt it is evident that Randy is contemplating the goodness that exist inside of him, Pony boy’s heroism inevitably prompted Randy to seek his identity outside of his social role, and ponder his more ethical self and his own selflessness. Pony reflects on Johnny’s and his own heroism saying, “Greaser didn’t have anything to do with it. My buddy over there would have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn’t have. It’s the individual. Pony boys statement reveals that real heroism is not a characteristic exclusive to either group; but rather an attribute of the pained and selfless. Through Randy’s genuine pain from losing Bob, Pony boy is able to look beyond the Soc facade and see that Randy too would have saved the
Greasers are the main stereotype in the book but also there is a small part played by the Socs. Although the book is about the life and times of a Greaser there is also a ‘Socs Story’ in there, as throughout the book you learn more and more about the Socs and how they live. But this all changes. When Bob dies Cherry and Randy, the main Socs characters, begin to see that there is no difference between Socs and Greasers. Randy, when he talks to Ponyboy in private doesn’t call
In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, the Socs are the ones to blame for all of the problems. After all they are the cause of the rumble. The Socs are no good drunk 24/7 idiots who need to turn their ego down, and intelligence up. They screw up MANY times in the book. Yah yah, greasers are not perfect, but at least they have some common sense. And I’ll tell you why the greasers are innocent and the Socs are not.
One of the main vs man conflict in the Outsiders is the rival between the greasers and the socs. The greasers are the east side boys who " steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations". The greasers, due to their family background and physical appearance, are being stereotyped as individuals who are poor and are provided with fewer opportunities than others. On the other hand, the socs, are " the west-side rich kids" who come from affluent backgrounds and" likes to jump greasers and throw beer blasts for kicks". In the eyes of the public, the Socs are the social elites whereas the greasers are considered the less privileged, second-class citizens.
The Socs mostly came from houses with two parents, drive fine cars, wear fashionable clothing, and even given the freedom they wanted. Instead of focusing on all the goods that the Socs had, they decided to focus on their hatred towards the Greasers. They wanted to jump the Greasers and do whatever it took to cause conflict. “You Greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophisticated--- cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us” (Hinton 33). The Greasers feel emotions, but the Socs are too cool to feel anything. Instead of the Socs taking advantage of everything they had, the Socs got editorials in the newspaper for being a public disgrace one day and a benefit to society the next day. Randy and Cherry seem to be the only ones to realize the error of the Socs ways. Cherry feels sympathy for the Greasers even after her boyfriend, Bob, was killed.
The greasers are the lower class so they are bound to be frowned upon by others. “Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped.” (Hinton 2). Greasers can’t even be alone in public because they risk being jumped by Socs. While Socs can walk alone without any problem, greasers cannot.
The difference in social class definitely took its toll on the two of these gangs. The Soc’s and Greaser’s opinion would change from with experiences, but for the most part it was a clash for who owned the town. The Socs were the “good guys” and the Greasers were the “troublemakers” of town, although this was definitely not the case but because of the unchanging prejudice opinions were placed on both of the groups it would not change. For example, Ponyboy explained that maybe the Greasers and Socs aren’t so different after all. On page 40, Ponyboy starts to wonder how different he is from any of the Socs, “It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the
Words have different meanings in neighborhoods. Two compliments in their neighborhoods are tough and tuff. Tough meaning the same as rough and tuff meaning cool or sharp. In kids today they get labeled because of the way they dress or the music they listen to. There are the skaters, the nerds, the ghetto people, the preppys, etc." Our hair labeled us greasers, too-it was our trademark. The only thing we were proud of" (64). Some groups are considered worse than the others, some have other problems then the others." You sure you want to go back? Us greasers get it worse than anyone else" (78). In The Outsiders Greasers had this tough appeal. They were boys, but needed to be more manly. "...I wanted to cry, but greasers don't cry in front of strangers, some of us never cry at all..." (91).