Stereotypes In The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton’s young adult realistic fiction novel “The Outsiders” is a beautifully written story about Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year old kid, with his group of friends, and his problems and struggles in the real world. For example, we get to know about the big conflict between the Socs and the Greasers who are two different social groups that live on the opposite sides of the town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Throughout the book, there are a lot of stereotypes and reputations that overpower the characters in the book, as no group exactly understands each other before having stupid fights with one another. In fact, that was how the major problem of the story, Johnny accidentally killing Bob because he was choking Ponyboy, started since one of them wasn’t

One way the story teaches us to learn someone before you make assumptions, since every human being is complex and different from each other by showing the way Socs and Greasers act against each other. Throughout the whole story, the Socs have never gotten along or understood the way of life of the Greasers, and vice versa. At the start of the story, Ponyboy explains to us how the Socs act towards the Greasers whenever they are alone, as he was walking home by himself from the movies. “Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped, or someone will come by and scream ‘Greaser!’ at them…We get jumped by the Socs.” (Hinton 2). This shows that the Greasers and Socs never got along with each other, and the Socs always wanted to pick a fight with the Greasers. But isn’t that what everyone thinks? Everyone thinks that the Socs are just rich, stupid people who are trying to pick small fights whenever they’re bored, and the Greasers are rude kids who are just waiting to get beaten up. The Greasers never understood the side of the Socs, and vice versa. Adding on, we read that Ponyboy does get jumped

At the beginning of the book, when Ponyboy talks about his family, and how he is different from both his older brothers, and talks about Sodapop’s personality. “But then, Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything…Like he’s never hollering at me all the time the way Darry is, or treating me as if I was six instead of fourteen. I love Soda more than I’ve ever loved anyone, even Mom and Dad. He’s always happy-go-lucky and grinning.” (Hinton 2). Ponyboy always thinks Sodapop has happy and grinning all the time, because he has never has shown the true emotions he was feeling inside. Everyone has complicated feelings a lot of the time, and it is inhumane to be happy all the time, each person goes through hard times. Adding on, Ponyboy talks more about Sodapop after he cracks a joke that makes Darry laugh. “Sodapop isn’t afraid of him like everyone else and enjoys teasing him.” (9). But what if Sodapop was actually scared of Darry, and just made jokes at him to feel less nervous around him? Ponyboy’s just straight up making an assumption that Sodapop isn’t afraid of him! Additionally, what if he felt bad after teasing Darry, since Darry is the one that cares of the family the most. On the other hand, we read about the side of Sodapop that no one