Reality In 'The Outsiders'

In the novel, Ponyboy couldn’t even walk a short distance home without getting jumped by the Socials. This idea is heartbreaking to realize that a child can’t safely walk around his or hers neighborhood without being harmed in some areas. The novel shows a numerous amount of young adults being killed or harmed due to gang violence. For example, Johnny Cade killed Bob Sheldon in self-defense, which was devastating to his family, friends, and girlfriend. The author also represents a positive side to violence at the end of the novel. The rumble between the two groups without weapons, helped end the aggression and hatred between them. This uncovered the common interest that they shared and allowed them to relate to each other on an emotional and physical level.

The entire book is about Ponyboy against other greasers and Socs. The terms greaser and Soc are used for the kids who live on the east and west side. “Ponyboy . . . I mean . . . if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don’t say hi, well, it’s not personal or anything, but . .(Hilton 45).” Cherry didn’t want to say hi to Ponyboy if she saw him because she is a Soc and he is a greaser. In fact none of the greasers or Socs said hi to each other. Society played a large role in this book by separating the Socs and the greasers.

To begin with, the setting takes place in multiple areas. Which makes the storyline change constantly and becoming different as the setting changes and the time of the day or night. “The park was about two blocks square, with a fountain in the middle and a small swimming pool for the little kids…” P. 53 This setting was huge to the story because this is where the main plot is occurring, this setting and place and time was the exact moment where everything began to go down. “ ‘ Pony , I didn’t mean to!’ but I was already at the lot by then and pretended I couldn’t hear.” P. 50. When Darry hit Ponyboy, Ponyboy knew that he

He never really understood why Randy thought that “Bob was the best buddy a guy could ever have”, or why Cherry was fond of him. After much contemplation, he comes to a realization that yes, Bob was mean, and vain, but above all he was human. (Chapter 11) Ponyboy Curtis "Ponyboy, listen, don't get tough. You're not like the rest of us and don't try to be.

The author shows Ponyboys instincts when the church starts on fire. Ponyboys says, “But he never heard Dally’s answer, for we had reached the top of Jay Mountain and Dally suddenly slammed on the brakes.” This quote defines how Ponyboy makes a rash decision to go and save the kids on Jay Mountain, even before Dally has stopped the car. After leaving the car, Ponyboy makes another rash decision trying to save the children in the fire. After the children are free and Pony and Johnny are exiting the church a beam falls on Johnny, Ponyboys says, “Then I heard Johnny scream, as I went back for him.” Ponyboys instincts are brought out greatly in this quote, the author almost makes it seem as if it is second nature to Ponyboy to help save people, leading to the next characteristic of

In the beginning of “The Outsiders”, Ponyboy only likes a few people but in the end, he realizes that he judged people unfairly. In the beginning, he only appreciated Johnny (the second youngest gang member), Soda (the middle child in his family) and Two-Bit (a wisecracking member of the gang). He dislikes Dallas (the most criminal of the gang) and Steve and thinks that his oldest brother, Darry, dislikes him. He also believes that all Socs are bad. His judgments are first brought into question when he meets Cherry Valence, a female Soc. Ponyboy, referring to her and her friend wrote, “It seemed funny to me that Socs -if these girls were any example - were just like us.” (37) Pony’s views on the Socs evolve again when he talks to Randy. After talking to Randy, Pony thinks, “Socs are just guys after all. Things are rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too." (118) By the end of the novel, Pony does not think all Socs are good because there are Socs like Bob, who jumped Johnny and Pony, but he realizes that people should be

At the end of the book Ponyboy finally comes to terms with the deaths of Johnny and Dally, and he finally realizes that violence is not the answer when he makes up with Darry. Darry and Ponyboy are shouting at each other, and Ponyboy asks Sodapop to take his side. This causes Sodapop to rush out of the house, and Ponyboy and Darry chase after him. When they finally catch up Sodapop tells them he feels sick of being pulled apart by their fights. Ponyboy sympathizes with Sodapop as he says in the text: “Darry and I did play tug of war with him, with never a thought to how much it was hurting him.” Ponyboy suddenly understands what his fighting with Darry has done to Sodapop, and later in their conversation Ponyboy realizes why he never got along with Darry: “I saw that I had expected Darry to do all the understanding without even trying to

Darry, the oldest brother have had many conflicts with Soda and Pony, which made him change during this novel. First, one event that made Darry change was when he slapped his little brother, Pony when he came home late. Pony ran away for a few days because he thought that Darry didn’t want him as a brother anymore. Darry was so sorry, sad, and mad at himself for slapping Pony.

My best friend, Marcia, and I had met Johnny and Ponyboy minutes ago when their buddy was trying to pick me up. He might have been successful too, if it wasn’t for them. Dally seemed a lot like my boyfriend, Bob, only the greaser version. Just like Bob, he seemed like the type that doesn’t fear anything, a free spirit, yet underneath that, he was thriving for something greater that would finally satisfy him. I could tell he’d been through a lot.

The Novel The Outsiders reveals that it is the “real” and “raw” moments the define an individual as human. In these moments of authentic and selfless love the attributes of individual become more definitive then social class, or reputation. Through examining Dallas Winston and his love for Johnny and Randy’s emotional encounter with Pony boy Hinton’s most haunting and enduring argument become evident, that self discovery imposed by love and loss has no sides but the outside.

The Outsiders, made in 1983, is based on the original book made in 1967, The Outsiders. The movie copied the same plot of the book heavily, as it still portrays the same main character, Ponyboy Curtis (played by Thomas C. Howell), a fourteen year old boy living with his two brothers. This one and a half hour film shows Ponyboy’s life as a greaser, as he experiences the positive and negative sides of his family life style, and questions the benefits of the greaser’s biggest enemy; the Socials.

At the beginning of the book, Ponyboy is in intelligent, young teen, but he lacks the perspective to understand the environment around him. He can only see his side of the story and fails to understand why others act the way they do. The first example of this is his oldest brother Darry. He thinks Darry hates him because he is always giving Ponyboy a hard time about his lack of common sense, his grades,...

The character that I had chosen to analyze was Ponyboy Curtis in the movie, The Outsiders (Coppola, 1983). I chose this character because the movie revealed how Ponyboy got to where he is mentally and everything that had occurred to get him to that point. I will analyze the adolescent phase of Ponyboy’s life. The theme of The Outsiders is how love can affect the relationships of close friends. The theories and theorists that support my analysis are Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial theory, Albert Bandura’s Observational Learning, Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Systems theory: Microsystem (Sigelman, 2015). From those theories and theorists the following points will be analyzed: identity, peer pressure, self-worth, and dependence.

The Outsiders message is about “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” It explains that nothing good can go on forever and nothing young can last forever. It tells you about how and why we should enjoy what we have and keep and cherish everything we have to its maximum limit. Why shouldn’t we cherish what we have? Why do we need more? Why can't we be equally treated with same amount of things such as money and houses? That is the real question. We have that to this very day. In The Outsiders, their lives are exactly like this. They have their awesome rich people lives and the poor have unhappy lives. Some of each gang just want to be normal, the same, or similar at least. But their money splits them up. All because of a little extra

In addition, Hinton’s allocation of Ponyboy as the narrator aids the novel in being well-read through several eras. Readers observe his bildungsroman, much like teenagers from any generation will have to do in their own lives. Near the end of the novel he expresses his feelings about the Socs, saying, “Socs were just guys after all. Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too” (Hinton 118). Because it does not matter whether the adolescent reader comes from the same time period of the novel or from today’s society, this fictional journey is especially significant. Without the point of view of Ponyboy, The Outsiders would be a novel that may not shape an adolescent’s reading experience as significantly as it does; furthermore, another relevant literary device in use is symbolism.