Maturity In The Outsiders

276 Words2 Pages
The novel, The Outsiders, written by S. E. Hinton is a story of a teen gang in rural Oklahoma through the eyes of fourteen year old Ponyboy Curtis while he struggles to learn right and wrong in a society in which he believes he is an outsider. Ponyboy has a hard time maturing after his parents die in a car accident and he is forced to live with his two older brothers Darry and Sodapop.
The greatest internal conflict within this novel is the struggle of choosing between his youth and maturity occurring within Ponyboy’s mind. Although Ponyboy is just a 14 year old boy the death of his parents put a shockingly new amount responsibility on his shoulders that he personally felt he could handle. Ponyboy can either continue to behave like his peers,