Examples Of Misjudgment In The Outsiders

Misjudgment is something that occurs often in novels in order to teach the reader an important lesson. It can teach the reader about the consequences of misjudgment, or about specific ways people are misjudged. Just because someone is different from the typical person doesn’t mean that they are inferior. In the novels The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and Lord of the Flies by William Golding, characters such as Johnny and Piggy were misjudged based on appearances and stereotypes, leading the reader to learn an important lesson about misjudgment in general. In The Outsiders, Johnny is misjudged when he is portrayed as the stereotypical violent “greaser” by the Socs, despite his selflessness and hate for violence, resulting in Johnny becoming known

This book starts off with a bunch of kids stranded on an island after their plane crashed. Within the first chapter, he is already being misjudged by being called “Fatty” and immediately cast aside. As the book progresses, he is only misjudged and ignored more and more. He struggles to be heard even while holding the conch. The one time he is listened to, he proposes bringing the signal fire down to the beach instead of up high. Piggy is obviously really smart and has many great ideas, but is constantly ignored and bullied for his appearance. One example of this is when he says: “‘We got a lot of sticks. We could have a sundial each’…. ‘Oh shut up.’” (Golding 59). He has the great idea of creating sundials for everyone, but is immediately shut down. All his ideas are automatically cast aside as stupid, always being told to “shut up”. If only he was listened to, they could have escaped the island sooner and with no fatalities. Piggy’s misjudgment throughout Lord of the Flies is extremely important because his great ideas are ignored due to this misjudgment, leading the boys to turn to savagery to survive and teaching the reader that someone should never be misjudged by their