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Social Characters In The Outsiders By S. E Hinton

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Maybe sometimes you wonder, “How come everything bad has to happen to me?” Well, in The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, this is pretty much what Ponyboy Curtis, a “Greaser” thinks everyday. The Greasers are the “gang” on the poor, broken down, east side of town. The greasers, most of whom have no or bad parents, are constantly being jumped by the ‘Socials,’ or Socs. After Ponyboy’s friend Johnny kills a Soc named Bob in self-defense, they run away and things get complicated when they save some kids from a burning building. There is a lot of social tension in this book, with the greasers always facing way more problems than the socs. As evident in the quote, the Socs are rich and snobby, and they waste their money on useless things, but the greasers have to get jobs in order to help their families. While everyone has problems, the difficulties of those less privileged are magnified by this detriment. First, those with more privilege take it for granted, but also assume their problems are worse than they are. For example, in The Outsiders, a rich girl named Cherry tells the main character, Ponyboy, that “Things are rough all over” (35). Pony, who disagrees, later thinks to himself, “Things are rough all over, alright. All over the East Side. It just didn’t seem right to me” (43). While Cherry might think the Socs suffer, too, as evident when she mentions Bob’s parents let him do whatever he wanted, they have it made compared to the greasers. Ponyboy also points out that this isn’t

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