The Outsiders Essay

Have you ever wondered about the character Dallas Winston from the book The Outsiders? Wondered what he did and what he was like? Now is your chance. The novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is about two groups that have a rivalry against each other. Dallas Winston is a violent, wild, and bitter kind of guy.

In “The Outsiders”, the speaker of the novel is a fourteen year-old fellow named Ponyboy who is the narrator and the youngest member of the greasers. S.E. Hinton wrote the novel in the 1960s in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the time of class struggle in society. The novel was intended to relate to young teens and adults who have experienced the troubles and unfortunate situations in the story. The author is referring to the poor and their daily struggles. The author explains the harshness of the greaser’s life and shows empathy for them. The author tells the truth as it is and doesn’t blur the reality. The author wants the audience to understand the predicaments and relate to it. “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton is a fiction novel that represents social

Although they are all different ages they all stay friends. They support each other through hard family times, for example; during the novel. Friendship is especially shown when Ponyboy runs away to hide with Johnny, so that Johnny don’t get into trouble with the police after killing a socs. Johnny shows that he cares about Ponyboy, but taking him back home to be with his two brothers. At the end of the novel, friendship is shown by Dally, committing suicide, as he can’t handle to live without Johnny.

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.

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

First, when Darry slapped Pony, he felt so sad and worthless because he felt like Darry didn’t want him at home anymore. Darry and Pony don’t get along to well in the beginning of the book, but throughout their conflicts, they learn that they love each other very much. Another example is when Pony gets a letter from Soda when he was running away. Soda said that they miss Johnny and Pony very much and wish they would come home. Pony gets very emotional and sad because he misses them so much. Pony and Soda realize that they need each other. They love each other and couldn’t imagine life without them. Pony tells Johnny that they need to go home and turn themselves in for killing a Bob. Pony and Johnny did not want to do this, but it was the right thing. On the other hand, when Darry and Soda were protecting Pony from the fight with the Soc’s he knows that they will never hurt or fight with one another again.

The Outsiders is a young adult novel written by S.E. Hinton. The book was first published in 1967 by The Viking Press. Today, the book is published under Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group. The book has a total of a hundred and eighty pages. The Outsiders fits in the genre of young-adult fiction because it relates to teens on emotional levels. Like Ponyboy, the teen protagonist of the story, teens relate to his emotional growth as he tries to piece his life together. The story follows a rivalry in a socially divided community. The Greasers are a gang of teenage boys who live on the east side of town; the wrong side of town. Their rivals, the Socials, better known as the Socs; come from the wealthier side of town. The two groups are always head to head with one another, seeking a fight. Ponyboy belongs to the Greasers. He is the youngest out of the three brothers in his family. Apart from his brothers, Ponyboy hangs out with Johnny, Dallas, Two-Bit and others who are also Greasers. The rivalry between the two groups heightens when Johnny kills Bob, a Soc, in an attempt to save Ponyboy from drowning. In this book report, I will go through the meaning of this book and my opinion on the story itself.

The 1967 novel The Outsiders by S.E Hinton is about the social outcasts; the Greasers and their rivalry against the high class Socs. In the beginning of the book the characters values and attitudes are revealed to the reader through the point of view of Ponyboy. As the book progresses and the lives of the characters take a turn for the worse there is a significant impact on the characters resulting in an alteration of their values and attitudes. Ponyboy, Dally and Johnny experience these changes due to the death of Bob the Soc and the chain of events that follow.

There are two groups in this book, the lower income families on the east side called greasers and the higher income paid families who live on the West side of town called Socs. One night the protagonist, Ponyboy Curtis and friend Johnny Cade were making their way back from a movie, they decide to lay down and talk for a little bit before they go home. His older brother, Darry, is waiting when Pony walks in. They instantly start arguing and Darry smacks Ponyboy across the face. Ponyboy and Johnny runaway moments later and find themselves in a park with drunk Socs who attack Ponyboy. Ponyboy regains consciousness to find himself lying on the ground next to an Socs dead body. Johnny had stabbed a Soc in the back with his switchblade. They hang low at an abandon church for a long week. Then, Dally arrives to check up on them and takes them out to lunch. He

In the letter that Johnny left for Ponyboy,“‘There's still a lot of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don’t think he knows’” (179). The note Johnny left for Ponyboy to tell Dally, but it was too late for that. Ponyboy says, “Johnny worshipped the ground Dallas walked on”(25). This shows that Johnny is just Dally’s pet. Johnny knows that Dally cares about him but he does not show it because is a tough person. All in all, Both characters care for each other.

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.

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

Dallas Winston is one of the main characters in the book The Outsiders. He is often thought of as a tough cold hearted person who only cares for himself and would never help another person except for one of his gang members. Also he is a juvenile delinquent who has an excessively long criminal record for someone of his current age. He lived in New York before he moved to his new town and was mugged there as a young teenager in which case had made him cold-hearted and hateful towards other people. Dallas Winston would most likely be described as a carefree individual by most police officers and people he had only met but to his friends he would have been described as a protective and caring individual who would have done anything for his friends. .

Friendship is mandatory to be able to trust and rely on one another. Hinton writes about troubles that Ponyboy goes through and how his friends have a great impact on these experiences. For example, Johnny killed Bob who was a member of the Socs, because he saw that Bob along with other Socs were trying to drown Ponyboy. He knew that he’d be in trouble, and he could have just left then and there. Instead, he killed Bob because they were hurting Ponyboy. Another situation where the author shows the theme of friendship is when Ponyboy got jumped and his whole gang came to help him. They were always ready to help a member of their group. Also, the situation when the church was on fire and Dally went to try and save Johnny, shows friendship as well. In chapter 6, Jerry, who Ponyboy thinks is one of the school’s teachers, says, “We think the towheaded kid is going to be all right. He burned one arm pretty badly, though, trying to drag the other kid out of the window,” (pg. 95). This tells us that Dally, who at first wouldn’t help the children in the church, helped Johnny get out because he was his friend and he cared about him. This shows how Dally demonstrates his friendship.

Dallas Winston, the leader of the greasers, lacks the presence of any sensitivity whatsoever. Therefore, his hardness and toughness encourage and set an example for the rest of the members of the greaser gang. “He wasn’t just any boy. He had something that made people follow him, something that marked him different, maybe a little better, than