Social Classes In The Outsiders

Ion Ushomirsky, Red, 2/10/23

The Outside World

People always think the whole world is against them, or everybody is further ahead in life. But normally it is just a figment of their imagination, but that is not the case in this book. The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, where everything is a result of social classes and their conflicts The true tragedy in this book is expressed in character vs. society. As characters are transformed into what society thinks of them, propelled by the fighting of social classes.
In the first example, we are shown that fights between Socs and Greasers are a result of social classes and their belief in stereotypes of each other. Very early in the novel, Ponyboy is jumped by a group of Socs, but his friends

Early in the book, Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally sneak into a movie theater and they meet these two girls named Cherry and Marcia. While Pony and Cherry were going to get popcorn, they stumbled onto the topic of Johnny. While Cherry had just met Johnny, she can tell that something is wrong with him. Pony ends up telling her how they found Johnny after he got jumped, and how much he had changed after the fact. Pony goes on to state that; “And Johnny, who was the most law-abiding of us, now carried in his back pocket a six-inch switchblade. He’d use it too, if he ever got jumped again. They had scared him that much” (34). Even though you could say that this is represented by character vs. character or character vs. fate, it is truly described as character vs. society. Everybody else in the world thinks that Greasers are mean, violent, and angry people. Even when Johnny and Ponyboy saved kids from a burning church, the teacher was surprised when Pony told him that they were Greasers. Johnny never was any of those, but society turned him into just that. He went from being a nice kind boy to an angry and dangerous greaser. Society changed him into what the stereotype of Greasers

Leading up to this first quote Johnny and Ponyboy ran away after they killed a Soc in self-defense. After a few days of hiding out, Johnny decides he wants to turn himself in. Dally advises him not to by saying this;““Johnny” Dally said in a pleading high voice, using a tone I never heard from him before, “Johnny I ain’t mad at you. I just don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t know what a few months in jail can do to you. Oh blast it, Johnny… you get hardened in jail. (153) Dally spent most of his time in jail as a kid and he has very bad memories of it. Dally feels as if jail messed up his life, and he doesn’t want the same for Johnny. Using a high voice really shows how much Dally cares about Johnny, and how he doesn’t want Johnny to fail like him. In the second quote, Johnny had just died, and it caused Dally to commit suicide. “How can I take it? I wondered. Dally is tougher than I am. Why can I take it when Dally can’t? And then I knew. Johnny was the only thing that Dally loved. And now Johnny is gone. “So he finally broke.” (246) Dally had always seemed destined for misfortune, he used to live in a gang riddled New York, where he was arrested, and had parents who didn’t care for him. People blamed Dally for misfortunes and looked down on him. Dally felt like there was no way to redeem his life, so Johnny was like his second chance, but when Johnny died All of the pressure in Dally built up and he