Throughout the centuries, many separate social classes have clashed just because they have different states of living. Much of our literature, poetry, and film is stained with the sad truth that contempt exists between people groups. Throughout the novel “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, this idea is very prevalent as the two gangs battle it out only to realize that the only way to make things right is by really trying to understand each other's viewpoints. When social classes are in place, they tend to fight against each other, but the only way to really solve the problem is by putting down the weapons and just accepting one another. In The Outsiders, it is obvious that the two social classes do not enjoy each other’s company, so they …show more content…
As the text says, “Even I [Ponyboy] could feel their hatred. They used to be buddies, I thought, they used to be friends, and now they hate each other just because one has to work for a living and the other comes from the west side” (Hinton, 143). This is striking. These boys could be, and were, good friends but their state of living causes them to throw punches. If Darry had lived on the other side of town, chances are that they would be friends. This is the danger of inevitable social classes. As this fighting continues, though, hopefully these separate classes will come to terms with the fact that punches only make things worse. As the violence ceases, classes can realize that the other class are people too, and treatment gets better. In the book, some of the greasers and even some of the socs come to terms with this idea towards the end of the book. For example, Randy, a seemingly devoted Soc, pulls Ponyboy aside. He proceeds to tell Pony that there is no point in fighting, voicing Pony’s thoughts exactly. They begin to understand each other, realizing the other’s humanity. Randy says that “People get hurt in rumbles [fights], maybe killed. I’m sick of it because it doesn’t do anything” (Hinton, 117). Randy has been in so many fights, all with different outcomes, and he has seen that it does nothing. No matter the outcome, it is obvious that the fighting only makes everything worse. If everyone could realize this, the world would be a better place.
A main example in the story is when Ponyboy said that he would have been more comfortable talking to the girls had they not been Socs and held a higher class than him, if they were Greaser girls then perhaps he would have formed a relationship with them but since they weren't he was held back. (Hinton 21). Ponyboy was apprehensive to form a relationship with anyone who was in a different class than him. As an example Ponyboy exclaimed, "Do you think that your spying for us makes up for the fact that you're sitting there in a Corvette while my brother drops out of high school to get a job? Don't you ever try to give us handouts and then feel high and mighty about it." (Hinton 98) He is envious because those who have more money than him get nearly anything they want while his clique had to work much harder to achieve anything. Similarly, it is stated that “‘It ain't fair!’ I cried passionately. ‘It ain't fair that we have all the rough breaks!’” (Hinton 43) Again, he is placing the blame for him not having as much in life on those who were given
Stereotyping plays a large role in the events of S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders. The two main opposing groups, the Socs and Greasers, constantly face problems because of the stereotypes associated with their social groups. As seen in the novel, stereotypes and prejudice cause extreme and unnecessary conflicts. Both groups have predetermined opinions of the other, but as the story progresses, many of the characters begin to realize how similar the groups can be. The stereotypes observed in the novel can easily be compared to those in real life. Both the Greasers and the Socs share many of their opinions with the other members of their groups, and this leads to many misunderstandings. In fact, most of the conflicts in the novel are caused
Acceptance and security. These are the two things that every human being wants. How they gain those two things varies from person to person.But most of us are privileged enough to not worry about these two very important necessities.However there are people in the world who are not so lucky. Those are the people who are failed to be understood by the rest of the world. However a lot of us are asleep to those people and their problems.Sometimes it takes a piece of art or literature to wake us up to those problems and a piece of literature that can do that is the novel written by S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders.In her novel Hinton, writes about two socioeconomic classes, the greasers and the Socs, who live their lives on the two ends of social status, near-poverty and full on rich, respectively.The cloak of money shields both sides to understand the others problems and the society is unable to take off the cloak as well. The novel is also a good eye-opener to how social,emotional,and economic forces can shape a person’s life and how if one can truly understand a person for what they are the world might just be a better place.
My opinion on the movie I watched, “The Outsiders” is that it was okay. I found some parts boring. There were some parts that was trying to be as emotional as the book and they looked very fake. The director of the movie was Francis Ford Coppola. The author of the book was S.E. Hinton. The Year the movie was made was 1983. The movie was about two gangs. The Socs and the Greasers. Two Greasers (Johnny and Ponyboy). A group of Socs jump them and Johnny is forced to kill one to save his friend from drowning. Johnny and Ponyboy run from the law to a small town named Windrixville. They soon become heros.
The book, and the movie, “the Outsiders” is about a conflict between greasers and socs. Up until the point where Johnny kills a soc, there are mostly only small fights and arguments between the two. The story “the Outsiders” takes place in the 1960’s, when there were two main lifestyles. Greasers and Socs. Greasers are known for greasing their hair. Socs are rich kids who have good clothes, drive mustangs, and always have an argument against the greasers. The main character in S. E. Hinton’s book “the Outsiders” is Ponyboy Curtis. He has two older brothers Darry and Soda. Pony is 14 years old and his best friend, Johnny, is 16 years old. S. E. Hinton wrote “the Outsiders” when she was 17 years old. Her book was published in 1967. The
The Outsiders was about the greasers and the Socs. The Socs always jump the greasers, one day Johnny fights back, he ends up killing Bob. Johnny and Ponyboy run away to a church and hide until Dally comes and gets them. They then see the church was burning, Ponyboy and Johnny run into it to save the kids inside. Johnny and Dally get injured, Ponyboy is okay. The greasers win the rumble, the Socs will stay out of the greasers territory, Johnny passes away from his injuries, Dally robs a store, the police shoot him, and he does not survive the shots. In the end Ponyboy decides to regather his life and he starts with writing his theme for his ELA class. The book The Outsiders book, the
In the book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, it's built around the class division between the Socs and the greasers. The kids in the Socs came from privileged and wealthy families while the greaser grew up in a unstable and poor environment, and it shaped who they are and how they act. The novel deals with issues important to urban teens, and the obstacles that are part of their daily lives, showing realism in Hinton's writing. In the article ¨The Urban Experience in Recent Young Adult Novels¨ by Sandra Hassell and Sandy Guild, it discuss the importance of urban teens worlds represented in literature. The article consists of many characteristics that are established in urban youth books such as, the usage of slang, strong sense of community,
The Outsiders movie which was released on March 25, 1983, is a American drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola .It is a crime thriller and is adapted from a novel of the same name by S.E. Hinton .The Film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma and set in 1965 .The story of this movie revolves around the conflict between the two different social groups ,which is the rich and the poor. It is a class versus class conflict which gives rise to a physical conflict between the Greasers and the Socs .I feel there are physical fights throughout the story between the two groups due to enculturation. The native culture that is transmitted from one generation to another among the Greasers is the reason for their limitations.
The Outsiders Essay – Describe an interesting theme from a text you have studied. Explain why this theme is interesting.
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.
The title of the story is The Outsiders. S.E. Hinton wrote it. Dell Publishing published the book. The main characters include Ponyboy, Darry, Soadapop, Dally Winston, Johnny, Cherry, Two-Bit, and Marcia.
For example, since Johnny killed Bob, and Johnny is part of the Greasers, the Socs were even meaner to them. Both of the groups were involved in a rumble. They weren’t just mad at one person but one whole group. Also, during this rumble Darry volunteered to take the first hit, and Paul went up against him. The two were actually on the same football team in high school and were buddies. However, now that they were part of this group, they had to fight one another. Despite their times before and how they actually got along at one point, they still fought. Considering, Cherry was a Soc and she cared about her reputation and what her parents thought of her, she wasn’t able to hang out with Ponyboy. After while hanging out, Cherry’s boyfriends came to pick them up. She told them if she doesn’t talk to him in the halls during school, it’s not personal , it’s just because of the different
Society has had issues with violence through all of history and still today. There is violence seen when they talk about Johnny and his home life. Pony was explaining to Cherry how Johnny got hurt and why he gets scared easily. Ponyboy stated, “We were used to seeing Johnny banged up — his father clobbered him around a lot. (32)” This shows how violence could affect someone’s life in a negative light. Secondly, the socs and the greasers rely on each other to survive one the streets and today’s gangs now rely on each other too. On page 59 to 62, Dally helped Johnny and Ponyboy like family because he helped them when they needed it the most. This sounded like the gangs now and how they give advice to the people that are in trouble. Lastly, the greasers believe that fighting is just a way of life. Dally relies on violence because that’s all he knows. His parents didn't care about him and with a very violent world, he goes to jail at ten years old. With that, it created a person that lives for violence and crime. For instance, people today still think that violence is the answer to everything. ISIS an Islamic terrorist group terrorizes people because they want their point across. Why can’t people just resolve things peacefully? Humans should speak their mind verbally, instead of physical harm to innocent people. Both in the book and in today's society, people use physical harm to solve problems and that creates an issue of
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the “Outsiders” takes place, the divide in the social classes is very prevalent. The two main social classes that were represented were the rich Socs and the poor greasers. The two groups divide themselves by what their families incomes are either you are rich and live on the westside or you are poor and live on the east side. “ Hey can you see the sunset real good from the West side?” (Hinton,129) In the text it is showing Pony talking to the Soc girl Cherry who lives on the Westside. It is showing how divided the two groups are. People usually hand out by people they in the similar social class with a few exceptions of course. Furthermore in the story the westsiders the Socs hung out together, and the east sider the greasers hung out together dividing each other. In addition the two gangs divide themselves by how they act. “ There are lots of drive-ins in town - the Socs go to The Way Out and to Rusty’s, and the greasers go to The Dingo and Jay’s” (Hinton,19) In the text the gangs both went to there own hangouts because the Socs went to there higher end places and the greasers went to there lower end places. A real life example of this is that all of the most of the rich families would hang out at a country club with other friends in their social class and the poor would hang out a bar with there friends.Social classes create divides in the community Because the Rich Socs and the Poor Greasers live in separate parts of the city because of their income differences. That difference also leads them to handout at different places and handout with that group of people in that social classes. The Isolation of these two groups lead to all the violence that was seen throughout the book.
“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.