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Innocence In S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders

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Did you know that “76% of parents feel guilty about saying “no” to their kids?” (Janice D'Arcy). S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the late 1960s, and follows a fourteen-year-old boy named “Ponyboy,” and his group the “Greasers.” Ponyboy and his group are constantly quarreling with the west-side “Socs,” and the Greasers always get the short end of the stick. At the beginning of the story, Ponyboy comes home after curfew, making Ponyboy’s brother “Darry” pretty mad, causing them to start fighting and out of mixed emotion, Darry slaps Ponyboy. Next, Ponyboy and another Greaser, “Johnny,” are by a fountain when a couple of Socs attack, and start to drown Ponyboy. Johnny, after being beaten to near death by Socs on an earlier date, kills a Soc named “Bob” with a switchblade, scaring off the other Socs. In the end, Ponyboy is asked to write a composition based on a theme for school and ends up telling his own story (Hinton). Within the novel, the Socs get all the breaks and the Greasers get …show more content…

For example, in chapter four, Ponyboy writes “Five Socs were coming straight at us, and from the way they were staggering I figured they were reeling pickled” (Hinton 42). Another disadvantage of being a Soc is that they can’t receive blame or lose credibility. Accordingly, in chapter seven, Randy tells Ponyboy “‘one time he came home drunker than anything--You know what they did? They thought it was something they’d done’” (Hinton 89). A final disadvantage of being a Soc is having a blank personality, and how to they fill that hole with anger. To illustrate, in chapter nine, Ponyboy records “and from what I’ve heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean--but people usually go by looks” (Hinton 107). Overall, underage drinking, incapable of receiving blame, and filling a blank personality with a angry attitude is just a few of many disadvantages to being a

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Ponyboy and his brothers live on the poor side of town. They are called greasers and are not as privileged as the Socs who live on the rich side of town. Being a greaser is difficult because they are the lowest class. The Socs often harass and beat up the greasers. In the beginning of the story, Pony gets beat up by a group of Socs.

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As Ponyboy achieves high grades and does well in school, he will become more like a Soc. This adjustment would occur because Socs are known for being superior students. On the other hand, greasers were known for being simpleminded, or as Sodapop refers to himself, “dumb” (17). To sum it up, by following Darry’s high standards, Ponyboy will have a prosperous future like the

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408 Words | 2 Pages

In the beginning the book ponyboy grows up hating the Socs. The Socs have have all the power and money and ponyboy hates them for this and also hates them because they are always picking on and fighting greasers. They do this because they think that they they’re better than the greasers. He hates them even more after he gets jumped. “I fought to get

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494 Words | 2 Pages

The Outsiders includes a plot that is very fascinating. It is a heroic story of friendship and belonging. The problem in the novel was the controversy between the Greasers and the Socs. Their hatred toward each other led to the climax of the story with Johnny killing Bob, a Soc, at the parking lot. Ponyboy, seeing this horrible event, decided to find Dally to help Johnny.

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246 Words | 1 Pages

Some people say the theme of the Outsiders-a book by S.E. Hinton- is preserving childhood innocence, but I say it is that violence is never the answer. I say this because, throughout the story there is a lot of violence. Every time there is some form of violence, something bad always happens as a result. None of the fights end up causing more problems. For example when Bob attacked Ponyboy Bob ended up dead, because of this Jonny and Ponyboy had to go on the run.

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1215 Words | 5 Pages

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquent Preventions, the Juvenile arrest rate in 1967 was a total of 2.4 million children ages 12-17. This was the year The Outsiders was written in. The realistic fictional novel, The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton and the article, “What Causes Juvenile Delinquency,” by Ilanna Sharon Mandel both relate to Juvenile Delinquency and its effects on children and their loved ones. Mandel’s points towards Juvenile Delinquency can be applied to Ponyboy and the other greasers through peer influences, family life, self-esteem, race discrimination, and horrible trauma.

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424 Words | 2 Pages

One's innocence is something that one should treasure for as long as possible. In The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, the novel focuses on the protagonist, Ponyboy, and his life as a member of The Greasers, a poor, underprivileged gang. When Ponyboy and Johnny, a fellow member of the greasers, get into a brawl with some of the members of The Socs, the Greasers wealthy rivals, that results in the death of Soc Bob, Johnny and Ponyboy are forced to go into hiding at an abandoned church. After Johnny decides that he is going to turn himself in to the police, a fire starts in the church, and Johnny and Ponyboy rush into the church to save a school group that is trapped inside. Ponyboy barely manages to escape, but a piece of timber falls on Johnny, resulting in a

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355 Words | 2 Pages

An important theme of the outsiders would be that life is not always fair and bad things happen to all kinds of people no matter how famous or rich you are, but no matter what happens you always have to move on and deal with it. In the book, The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, the Greasers have a lot of unfair things happen to them no matter how nice or respectful they act. Going through all the stuff the Greasers go through they have to mature more quickly and lose their innocence at a young age. For example, at the drive through when Cherry was taking to Ponyboy, she said, “No not innocent. You’ve seen too much to be innocent” (26).

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Some parts include during pages sixty-six to sixty-eight when Randy, Bob, and three other Socs attacked grease territory and attached them; they did this only because they were drunk, bored and Ponyboy & Johnny had been talking to their ex-girlfriends in a friendly manner. Another situation was explained during pages thirty-nine to forty-three where the same gang violated Johnny for no reason except probably because they had the power to do it. My final example was at the start of the book on pages five and six were a group of five Socs abducted Ponyboy and attempted to cut his hair without his permission, they probably would have if Ponyboy’s friends hadn't shown up and scared the Socs away. None of these situations had valid reasons for starting a fight, therefore, making them more of a hazard than the greasers. Another matter that Socs is a bigger scandal to society is that the Greasers aren’t that bad themselves.

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603 Words | 3 Pages

In this book report I will talk about the book “The outsiders” written by S.E. Hinton, I will do a review of the story, the point of view, theme, symbols and my opinion about this book I really liked to read for the English class. The story is about a boy named Ponyboy who lived in a small town in Texas with his two brothers Darry and Sodapop were a gang war was taking place between two different social class people: The Socs and the Greasers. Ponyboy will learn the consequences bad acts can bring to your life in the middle of a gang war. The greasers were a middle class and not so social kind of people who liked to get in trouble and The other gang The Socs were a most of them a high class or middle-high class group of people who where they went they will always go in groups of like three or four people.

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3716 Words | 15 Pages

12 Extended Essay The Complexity of Innocence in S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders Word count: 3,661 S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders uses allusion to its advantage, specifically through the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, written by Robert Frost. The novel highlights Ponyboy Curtis and the other greasers he associates himself with; among these are Dallas “Dally” Winston and Johnny Cade. The allusion to Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, shows the complexity of the retention and loss of innocence in specific characters in The Outsiders by relating lines of the poem with three of the main boys highlighted in the novel:

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882 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever experience the loneliness? Have you ever be an outsider? Do you care about other people feeling? The book “The Outsiders” written by S.E. Hinton’s novel, is about a boy named Ponyboy, which is on the greaser side. There are two main gangs of people.

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811 Words | 4 Pages

The reader becomes aware that the Socs intentions were to harm Ponyboy for no specific reason. The cycle of violence that began when Johnny was attacked by the Socs while he was by himself and vulnerable, is the same that happened to Ponynoy. Moreover, tensions are rising between the two groups due to the fact that the Socs get bored and jump the greasers. Since the Socs' economic situation differs greatly from that of the greasers, they believe that because of this higher class, they have the ability to do what they please and more power. As stated in the novel, ‘‘We're poorer than the Socs and the middle class.

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849 Words | 4 Pages

For instance, they have money, and money can buy whatever they want. Similarly, Pony expressed: “I really couldn’t see what the Socs would have to worry about - good grades, good cars, good girls, madras and Mustangs and Corvairs - Man, I thought, if I had worries like that I’d consider myself lucky.” Assuming that the Socs have no problems, Pony comes to the conclusion that it’s only the Greasers that have all the rough breaks. Next, Pony thinks that the Socs aren’t fair because they jump Greasers for fun and don’t think about the effect that it has on the Greasers. Furthermore, the Socs don’t fight fair, they gang up on the Greasers and they intimidate them.

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613 Words | 3 Pages

Many people have used violence to solve problems that they have at some point in their life, but as you look back at what you accomplished, you realized that violence doesn’t help you in a good way. Ponyboy learned that the hard way. In The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton presents the idea that using violence against your rival(s) isn’t the solution, it is the problem. One scene that reveals the idea that violence isn’t the answer and that it can only hurt others, was in Chapter 3 when ponyboy talks about what happened to Johnny. He said, “Johnny was lying face down on the ground.

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