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The Outsiders Essay

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According to a study by Professor David Pyrooz conducted at Sam Houston State University about adolescent health in the U.S., nearly 1.5 million youth in the U.S. are gang members. This shows that the book, The Outsiders, written by S. E. Hinton is more relevant to modern society than one may think. The story takes place in the 1960s and is about Ponyboy Curtis, a member of a low class gang of kids from age 14 to around 20 who call themselves the Greasers. They are in constant struggle with the upper class gang who calls themselves the Socs. After Pony's friend, Johnny, kills a Soc in self-defense, the two flee to an abandoned church out of town. They later go out to eat and subsequently return to find they had inadvertently started a fire…show more content…
Afterward, at the hospital, recovering from the fire in the church, Pony is visited by Darry and Soda at the hospital. Ponyboy said, "In that second what Soda and Dally and Two-Bit had been trying to tell me came through. Darry did care about me" (Hinton, 98). This shows that, contrary to what some members of that town think, Greasers are not selfish thugs. Likewise, in the real world, some people assume that people who screwed up legally in the past do not care about others, but even people with poor legal records do have friends and family they care about. Later, at the rumble, Pony watches the Socs get out of their cars. He describes them as ". . . clean-shaven with semi-Beatle haircuts, wearing striped or checkered shirts with light-red or tan-colored jackets or madras ski jackets . . . That's why people don't ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us" (Hinton, 141). Obviously, the Socs are into just as much, if not more illegal stuff as the Greaser, but Pony says that people tend to blame the Greasers because of their looks, further showing that many Socs, although nice-looking at first, are very destructive and mean. Similarly, in the physical world, well groomed and clothed people are treated better than those who are not as fortunate, but of course they shouldn't be. Concisely, many Greasers, although initially thought of as irresponsible thugs, are actually not as bad as people may think, and, by the same token, many Socs,
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