Challenges Of Ponyboy In The Outsiders

Challenges are obstacles that everyone face. Whether they are for game shows, tests, or mental challenges, they all stump people and force one to take them on at some point. Without these challenges, life would be easy, and one wouldn’t have any fun. A young boy that faced these many challenges is named Ponyboy. Ponyboy is from The Outsiders, a book where a gang of greasers is suppressed and looked down on by the higher classes. This gang is more a group of lower class young adults and kids who are forced to grow up young rather than a stereotypical gang. In the book, they must fight oppression to keep themselves alive. In The Outsiders, Ponyboy and his group faced many challenges that were mostly overcome and are classified into the categories

man conflict. A conflict of man vs. man is when, in a literary piece, there is a figure that represents the hero(s), and a figure that represent the villain(s) that have alternate egos, or go against each other. In the book, the greasers and allies were the heros, while the Socs were the villains, and the obstacle beyond their control was the rumble between the two sides over the Bob death “scandal.” The unavoidable conflict after Bob getting killed by Johnny caused “all-out warfare all over the city. That kid you killed had plenty of friends and all over town its soc against grease” (Hinton 83). After Bob was killed, it made the Socs emotional and mad. With the death of one of their leaders, they wanted revenge and saw this as a murder with no clear reason. The conflicting egos and views of the Socs and greasers set off the uncontrollable man vs. man conflict. When Johnny was hurt in the fire, it gave the greasers even more reason to fight in the rumble. Once the Socs started arriving at the rumble sight, it was clear to Ponyboy that it would be a hard fight because he “counted twenty-two of them. There were only twenty of us, so I figured the odds were as good as we could get them… ‘They’re running!’I heard a voice yell joyfully. ‘Look at the dirty ------ run!’... ‘We won,’ Darry announced in a tired voice” (Hinton 141,145). As one can see, the greasers were outnumbered in the rumble, making this a huge obstacle to overcome. Also, it is clear that both sides would have taken a beating, but the greasers pulled out on top against the odds. The conflict of man vs. man was not in the greasers favor, they were poorer and harassed by the Socs at will, but the greasers were able to overcome this and conquer the