Point Of View In The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton

Flying on an airplane over the clouds, the sky would look sunny, while down below, there could be a heavy storm present. The cloud covers the passenger's’ view of the ground, but if the plane would just fly through the clouds, passengers would see that it wasn’t sunny at all. In life, a person's point of view can differ like that depending on perspective. This is how the events in The Outsiders can be seen differently. The Outsiders, a book written by S.E. Hinton, is a story about the life between two social groups, the Socs and the Greasers and how they interact with one another. This book showed the theme that opinions on people can change, especially if people look at others from a different point of view.

One example of a character’s change

Ponyboy has always thought of their relationship being very close. He says how Soda's the only one that understands him, how he always listened to everything Pony wanted to say to him, therefor he perceived the relationship as a very good one. But one day Pony noticed how Soda’s been acting differently, but he continues on and doesn’t pay much attention, however. His view of the relationship changes when Pony and Darry had a fight about school and Soda ran out of the house. Pony didn’t know what was going on, so Darry explained, “It’s the letter he wrote to Sandy, returned unopened.” (Hinton 174) Here, Pony realizes that their relationship isn't all that good. He thought about the fact that he “never had paid much attention to Soda’s problems.” Darry too was surprised to hear this and goes on to ask Pony why Soda didn’t tell him, because he thought Soda told Pony everything. Pony notices the fact that he might’ve tried to. He says, “How many times had Soda tried started to tell me something only to find I was daydreaming or stuck in a book? He would always listen to me no matter what he was doing.” (Hinton 175) Pony never realized their relationship was only a one way street until now. He thought their relationship was all good, but that's not how soda saw it. A relationship like this shows readers that if people would try to see from someone else's point of view, they could have a different opinion of other