Conflict In S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders

The great philosopher Plato once said , “Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, and the other of the rich; these are at the war with one another.” This quote perfectly summarizes the theme of S.E Hinton's novel, The Outsiders. The novel is about two gangs/groups that live in Rural, Oklahoma, the Greasers and the Socials. The Socs are the more affluent and often times referred to as the ‘West-side rich kids’, and the Greasers, are the less fortunate gang. Throughout the novel both gangs experience various types of conflict and at one point their differences ended up costing the life of a couple gang members. I will prove that the socs were the primary group that caused the conflict in the novel. One night, the Greasers go out to watch a movie, and sit behind two Soc girls. This was the start of the whole conflict of the story but the Greasers didn't intentionally sit behind them. After the two Soc girls scream away Dally, one of the oldest Greasers, Cherry ( the most popular Soc girl ) startsn talking to the other

Both gangs agree on having a rumble because the Greasers were treated unfairly and The Socs were trying to be somewhat fair. All of The Greasers were thinking“ We gotta win that fight tonight, We gotta get even with the Socs. For Johnny. “ (125). This shows that the only reason why the Greasers participated in the rumble was to get even with the Socs and to take that win for Johnny’s death. The only reason why they wanted to become even with the Socs was because the Socs always pick on them and treat them like garbage. Instead of the Greasers fighting with weapons to kill Socs, they wanted to be fair and asked for the rumble to not include weapons because “ A fair fight isn't rough, Blades are rough. So are chains and heaters and pool sticks and rumbles. Skin fighting isn't rough. It blows off steam better than anything.”