S.E. Hinton’s 1967 young adult realistic fiction novel The Outsiders is a story about a 14-year-old boy named Ponyboy Curtis whose parents died not so long ago due to a car crash. He goes through a series of traumatizing events that lead him to develop as a person. In the story, he is part of the Greasers, a group that is seen as dirty and that lives on the broken side of town. Nicknamed for their greasy hair, they are considered no money gangsters. However, though they may be seen as dirty, they have each other's backs. The Socs are on the rich side of town, which means Socials. Unlike the Greasers, the Socs were born into an upper-middle class family. According to Ponyboy, these two gangs are a bunch of friends who stick up for each other, …show more content…
On page 33, they mention it, but the result of it was absolutely crushing for Johnny, as Ponyboy says, "scared of his own shadow" (4) This shows that he's afraid of getting hurt again, which also pushes his friends to the edge as they try to help him. It's the same for the Soc too; the Greasers also hurt the Soc by killing Bob. Who tried to kill Ponyboy, putting him underwater as Johnny watched before killing Bob and saying "I killed him" (56). This back-and-forth fighting is clearly just a bunch of kids trying to assert dominance over each other. They push each other to the limit, and they think that they are proving something to themselves and to the other social groups, but all they are doing is harming each other. As you can see, the similarities and how far they take things are striking because before, it was just hurting and jumping each other, as shown on page 33. However, the Soc also gets hurt like the Greasers, as shown throughout the story, and it gets us closer to both sides as they try and kill each other. That's why it proves that this story is about two sides of the same