The Outsiders: Will You Always Stay An Outsider?

Max Bergman
Ms. Stephanie
Archimedes English
11/17/23
Will you always stay an outsider?
In The Outsiders, the concept of identity is woven thoroughly. The question would be, is your identity pre-determined by your circumstances? In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, the story follows Ponyboy. Ponyboy is a “Greaser” which implies he grew up in a poor household. He must face a violent group of teenagers called “Socs” who come from wealthy households and tend to jump Greasers. In the novel, the divide between Socs and Greasers is prevalent. “Your life must be so easy because you are a Soc” and “You must commit crimes because you are a Greaser” is what each side thinks about the other despite not being true. This superiority fallacy is what

In The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy says, "I wouldn't want you to see him. You're a traitor to your own kind and not loyal to us. Do you think your spying for us makes up for the fact that you're sitting there in a Corvette while my brother drops out of school to get a job?” As the above quote shows, even with Cherry, when she was being a spy for the Greasers, she was still a Soc. She could never understand what the Greasers are going through. Another reason why the identity of the characters doesn't change is how loyal each class is to its peers. There is no way that someone could switch sides. In the story, a passage goes as follows, "’I am a Greaser,’ Sodapop chanted. ‘I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat up people. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to Society. Man, do I have fun!’" Someone who is not loyal would never say something like this. In this quote, the Greasers happily say terrible things about themselves which is not something that any average person would even think of doing, yet the Greasers see this as perfectly

That if one talks with, and are friends with the other class one will become part of that class. Hang out with Greasers, one becomes one, hang out with Socs, one becomes one. If one hangs out with them they will accept that person and treat them as one of themselves. In the story, Ponyboy states, “A few guys from school had dropped by to see me; I have quite a few friends at school even if I am younger than most of them and don't talk much. But that's what they are--- school friends, not buddies. I had been glad to see them, but it bothered me because we live in kind of a lousy neighborhood and our house isn't real great.”, and that “Most of my friends at school come from good homes, not filthy rich like the Socs, but middle class, anyway.” Because Ponyboy has associated himself with these other kids as stated above, he is accepted by them and has become one of them, proving that he can choose his class. Yes, he can become accepted by this other class, but it hasn't changed his identity. To add to this, the middle class isn't for the most part considered an identity. Ponyboy would have never been accepted by the Socs who are on the other end of the spectrum. To add to this, the characters in the story could never bring themselves to change their identity to the people they have had so much conflict