Loss Of Innocence In The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton’s the Outsiders takes place in a little town in Oklahoma where the town is divided in two by the Socs and Greasers. This book is mainly about Ponyboy Curtis who is the youngest of the member of the Greasers and always hang around his brother Sodapop and doesn’t believe his oldest brother Darry cares for him.

The Outsiders, a coming-of-age novel, written by S.E. Hinton who was a teenager at the time of writing is firmly based upon groups of teenagers divided amongst their social classes. The novel takes on the rival battles of the Socials and the Greasers.

Everyone is born into this world with a sense of innocence, completely oblivious to the cruelties of the world. However, as humans grow up and reach early- adulthood, they begin to realize the realities of this world, all that is real and all that is, in fact, a figment of the imagination. As people learn that it is truly impossible to stay hidden from the harsh realities of adulthood for their entire life, they also learn that it is impossible to shield others from these truths as well. They learn that although they may not be able to protect themselves from life’s misfortunes, they must perceiver, move forward, and not hold anyone back in their tracks. Just as all humans eventually learn to accept and move past life’s various misfortunes,

Loss of innocence happens when a child commits a serious offense because of what technology has taught them. “… Long before you knew what death was, you were wishing it on someone else”( Bradbury 8). This explains how young children don’t really understand what death is and how serious it is, so they will wish death on someone like it’s nothing. “I wish you were dead!”(Bradbury 10). The children had seen death so many times it became meaningless. When the children had reached their limit with their parents, they finally went through with what they had been watching in the nursery. “-the

Part of you is being slowly chipped away, the more and more you live life the less and less you have of it and you don't even know it. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is a poem by Robert Frost that uses nature to represent innocence in a person. The Outsiders is about a boy named Ponyboy and his gang the Greasers dealing with bullying, deaths, and life threatening situations that chips away at their personalities. In the Poem “Nothing gold can stay” by Robert Frost and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton the theme innocence is portrayed in similar ways.

“The Outsiders” identifies the 60’s, illustrating the violence between groups, often involving a group’s social class. For instance, the violent tensions between the Socs and Greasers 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 since the Socs and Greasers assume the problems will be solved with violence, they take action.

This causes Dally to become reckless and finally ending in him being killed by the police, Ponyboy tells the reader “Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.” (p.187). From this the reader can gather how the events had modified Dally, creating a more emotional and caring character, weakening his value for himself and in return, strengthening his value for others.

The novel The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is an obvious example of the struggles of coping with life and maturity. The novel is mainly about two small groups (the socials and the greasers) and the physical and emotional battles between them. The book follows Ponyboy and his small gang which consists of 7 boys; Sodapop and Darrel, Ponyboy's brothers, Johnny, Ponyboy's best friend, Dallas, the worst member of the gang (worst in the sense that he breaks law for fun and gets into the most trouble), Keith/ Two-Bit, the joker of the group, and Steve, Sodapops longtime best friend. Certain members of this gang are showing obvious signs that maturing is difficult, such as Ponyboy acting tough around people but in his thoughts and small indications we can see he is not the same Pony. Another obvious sign is that the entire Curtis family (Ponyboy, Sodapop, Darrel) seems to act older and more mature than really are. The most prominent form of Pony specifically is that he is completely different at the beginning then he is at the end of the book.

"Johnny begs Ponyboy to stay gold this is a direct reference to Robert frosts poem, sadly the world the the boys live in makes it almost impossible to 'stay gold.'"

While reading The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, I felt as if I took a time travel to the 1960’s. The book clearly gives an insight to the past. Unlike other book, The Outsiders has its own unique meaning. The author created something different than a modern clique book that I read in my day to day life. Hinton’s word choice creates an interesting book where it felt as if it was non-fiction than young-adult fiction. I like this book because the author made something extraordinary by stating the past rather than another author’s writing twenty-first century book.

S. E. Hinton focuses writing about teenage problems in society. While growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the concept of high school cliques was senseless to Hinton. She states, “I was mad about the social situation in my high school where everyone got in their little group and wouldn’t make friends outside of it.” (SEHinton.com) The Outsiders was published in 1967 when Hinton was only 17 years old. Hinton’s wrote the novel to fill a gap in the existing teenage literature available at the time. Hinton is credited with changing the way young adult fiction is written (Peck). She wanted to read realistic stories about teenagers and based The Outsiders on events in her own life. Hinton states, “One

Hinton’s seminal work, The Outsiders. Penned in 1967, at first glance, this is mostly a straightforward “us versus them” novel in which our hero pariahs find meaning and understanding through communication with the “enemy” only to find out they were much more similar than they had once anticipated. This is, of course, a correct reading of the classic novel but ultimately a shallow one. There is far more at play in The Outsiders than such trivialities as “enemies become friends”. Comradery, blood-ties, and personal valor are all extremely masculine ideals and all are very present in this novel if one only examines the text on a more critical level. For example, consider the group of boys themselves and how they ultimately function as a family with a clear hierarchy; how is this group any different than a medieval clan or ancient warrior tribe? Dally and Darryl are clearly father figures to the younger boys as they display examples of stern leadership and vintage bravado. Darryl, as the provider, works everyday roofing to support his family and friends; most of the boys can be found at the Curtis’s house at one time or another, it’s almost akin to a headquarters for this group of young men. Dally, on the other hand, acts as a guide or mentor for Pony and Johnny to help them survive in a world hostile to

The Outsiders is a novel written by Susan Eloise Hinton, also known as S.E Hinton. The setting of the story takes place in the 1960s. The Outsiders is written in first person view, by Ponyboy Curtis. The story revolves around the greasers and Socs. The Socs are the west side rich kids, they wrecked houses and “threw beer blasts for kicks”. While the Greasers were the east side kids, they “drove old souped-up cars, held up gas stations and had gang fights once in a while.” One of the conflicts the characters face is man vs man, which is because the greasers and Socs don’t get along, this is because they feel superior to each other. They both had different ways of lives, they did different things for fun, and they did not understand each other. This conflict was later resolved towards the end of the story when Ponyboy speaks to Randy about no longer fighting after Bob’s death.

Loss of innocence is one of the major elements of The Catcher in the Rye that make the novel so renowned. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about an adolescent named Holden who wanders around New York City after being kicked out of a prestigious boarding school in eastern Pennsylvania. While learning more about himself and the adult world, he experiences alcohol, prostitution, and sexuality. Holden struggles with issues such as identity and maturity. Eventually, he realizes what it means to become an adult and accepts that maturity and development is inevitable. Holden suffers from a loss of innocence when

A young adult novel’s audience often desires relatable characters and a meaningful plot that helps them to find resolutions to their own uncertainties concerning life. Many authors employ the literary technique realism to satiate these cravings. Today, there are some popular novels that attempt to imitate this, such as the coveted The Fault in Our Stars or Divergent. These selections, while widespread in the hands of young adult readers today, will not stand the test of time in the way that The Outsiders has, written by S. E. Hinton in 1967, has. This novel, both produced by and intended for teenagers, instead is a better candidate of realistic young adult fiction. Other selections, from Hinton’s era and from today, do not radiate the same