Themes Of Crime, And The Prince Of Shadows

The Outsiders, a coming-of-age novel, written by S.E. Hinton who was a teenager at the time of writing is firmly based upon groups of teenagers divided amongst their social classes. The novel takes on the rival battles of the Socials and the Greasers.

“The Outsiders”, by S.E. Hinton, is centered around Ponyboy’s path to maturity and the life lessons he learns along the way. The novel follows Ponyboy, a greaser, and his gang’s conflict with the Socials, a rival gang. In it, he learns to not judge people hastily and reject gang mentality. Ponyboy also loses his innocence. The following paragraphs will explore his growth throughout “The Outsiders”.

Thesis: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, a novel which tells the story of conflict between the "greasers" and the "Socs," captures the voice of ponyboy and his friends in a realistic way that relates to boys and their gangs even today.

The Book Thief is set in the time of World War 2 where the Holocaust is present and disaster is everywhere. Throughout the story, Liesel, the main character, learns that words are extremely powerful and hold the ability for people to use them for good or for evil. Among the disaster and altercations, Liesel uses her literature to comfort her and make herself more powerful due to her knowledge, which demonstrates the theme of the story, the comfort and power of literature and words softens the pain of loss.

Ponyboy Curtis - The novel's fourteen-year-old narrator and protagonist, and the youngest of the greasers. Ponyboy's literary interests and academic accomplishments set him apart from the rest of his gang. Because his parents have died in a car accident, Ponyboy lives with his brothers Darry and Sodapop. Darry repeatedly accuses Ponyboy of lacking common sense, but Ponyboy is a reliable and observant narrator. Throughout the novel, Ponyboy struggles with class division, violence, innocence, and familial love. He matures over the course of the novel, eventually realizing the importance of strength in the face of class bias.

“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.

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.

While reading The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, I felt as if I took a time travel to the 1960’s. The book clearly gives an insight to the past. Unlike other book, The Outsiders has its own unique meaning. The author created something different than a modern clique book that I read in my day to day life. Hinton’s word choice creates an interesting book where it felt as if it was non-fiction than young-adult fiction. I like this book because the author made something extraordinary by stating the past rather than another author’s writing twenty-first century book.

Last but not least, Ponyboy faces the society’s impression of the greasers. Everybody thinks that they are hoods and that nothing good can come out of them. The greasers are judged strongly because of their economic status and face judgment from everyone. Nobody cares to understand their life and what experience on a daily basis. He also finds out when he was in Windrixville, that people don’t judge them like they do in their city. The whole conflict of the story is the Greasers and the Socs. The characters in the story have gone about their own ways to at least try to fix the problem. Many chose fighting and violence in general, but Ponyboy choose to write a book for a writing assignment. He discovers that there is no difference between them

S.E Hinton’s, “The Outsiders” and Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s ,“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” are two young adult novels with greatly different stories yet support the same ideology. Both works focus on the lives of two teenage boys, Ponyboy, of Hinton’s novel, and Aristotle, of Sáenz’s. The story of Ponyboy takes place in the year 1969, and focuses on a huge but short period of his life. It tells about his struggle as an orphan under the care of his two older brothers and deals with gang violence, socioeconomic status, and death. Whereas, the story of Aristotle takes place during the 1980’s and covers a long period of his life and involves his experiences with his relationship with his hands-on parents, his sexual orientation, and struggling with his awkward years. There are many conceptions of what is appropriate for young readers, but these two novels defend that young people should be informed. By examining “The Outsiders” and “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe”, this ideology of communicating mature topics to these readers is supported as the characters of both novels deal with the challenges of belonging, identity, and staying true to themselves, as well as reinforce the notion that adolescents can benefit from this knowledge.

“The silence grew heavier, and I could hear the harsh heavy breathing of the boys around me. Still Darry and the Soc walked slowly in a circle” (Hinton, 143). The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is a realistic fiction novel taking place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1966. The story informs the reader of a rivalry between two gangs, the Socials (Socs) who are the rich people that have nice cars, clothes, and have a bright future ahead of them. The Socs live on the West side. The Greasers are the other gang who weren’t rich, weren’t known to have bright futures and always had grease in their hair, hence the name Greasers. Throughout the story many themes have been applied to our society today. Two themes that I have chosen were that loyalty is a thread that holds people together and to not judge people based on how society labels them.

Hinton’s seminal work, The Outsiders. Penned in 1967, at first glance, this is mostly a straightforward “us versus them” novel in which our hero pariahs find meaning and understanding through communication with the “enemy” only to find out they were much more similar than they had once anticipated. This is, of course, a correct reading of the classic novel but ultimately a shallow one. There is far more at play in The Outsiders than such trivialities as “enemies become friends”. Comradery, blood-ties, and personal valor are all extremely masculine ideals and all are very present in this novel if one only examines the text on a more critical level. For example, consider the group of boys themselves and how they ultimately function as a family with a clear hierarchy; how is this group any different than a medieval clan or ancient warrior tribe? Dally and Darryl are clearly father figures to the younger boys as they display examples of stern leadership and vintage bravado. Darryl, as the provider, works everyday roofing to support his family and friends; most of the boys can be found at the Curtis’s house at one time or another, it’s almost akin to a headquarters for this group of young men. Dally, on the other hand, acts as a guide or mentor for Pony and Johnny to help them survive in a world hostile to

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 Outsiders is a novel written by Susan Eloise Hinton, also known as S.E Hinton. The setting of the story takes place in the 1960s. The Outsiders is written in first person view, by Ponyboy Curtis. The story revolves around the greasers and Socs. The Socs are the west side rich kids, they wrecked houses and “threw beer blasts for kicks”. While the Greasers were the east side kids, they “drove old souped-up cars, held up gas stations and had gang fights once in a while.” One of the conflicts the characters face is man vs man, which is because the greasers and Socs don’t get along, this is because they feel superior to each other. They both had different ways of lives, they did different things for fun, and they did not understand each other. This conflict was later resolved towards the end of the story when Ponyboy speaks to Randy about no longer fighting after Bob’s death.

Ponyboy, Johnny, Sodapop, Darry are all a part of the unruly gang, the Greasers. S.E Hinton is writing these characters as rebellious young men, with a harsh background, who takes their anger and hardship out on gang fighting. These roles play an important part in this book because it shows that even though they nothing physically, they have a heart stronger than gold for each other and others mentally. Hinton use these characters to show prejudice leads to wrong conclusions, violence and oppression because these “poor” young men are getting beat up by the rich Socs who have never felt the feeling of being in poverty. “ You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you’re in a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don’t stick up for them, stick together, make