Theme Of Friendship In S. E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders'

The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, is about greasers and socs fighting. When Ponyboy went to the movies with Johnny and Dally, he came home later and his brother, Darry, gets mad and accidentally hits him. Ponyboy gets mad and runs away with Johnny, but while running, they come across a group of socs, and one of the socs, Bob, tried to drown Ponyboy, so Johnny stabbed him for self defense. They go to Dally for help and he tells them to hide out in an abandoned church and he would meet them there later, and when he does, they go out to eat, but come back to a burning church. Ponyboy and Johnny run in to save the children inside, but Johnny was left in a critical condition, and died later on at the hospital. Dally couldn 't handle it and purposely

It shows friendship when Johnny ran away with Ponyboy without asking any questions. Johnny just started to run with him and didn’t ask any questions until they had stopped running. “Johnny asked no questions. We ran for several blocks until we were out of breath.” (Hinton 51). Ponyboy just came to him in the middle of night saying how he was running away, and Johnny just went with it. Another time it shows friendship in the book, is when they run into the group of socs at the park and Bob tries to drown Ponyboy. Johnny comes and helps Ponyboy by stabbing Bob, accidentally killing him. Johnny could have just left Ponyboy, but Ponyboy is one of his friends, and Johnny couldn’t just leave him. So, he got Bob off of Ponyboy by stabbing him. The book says, “I’m dying, I thought, and wondered what was happening to Johnny. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I fought again desperately but only sucked in water.” (Hinton 56). It is a good thing that Johnny had helped Ponyboy because otherwise, Ponyboy would have drowned. Johnny didn’t mean to kill Bob, he was just trying to be a good friend and help Ponyboy from drowning. It also shows friendship when Ponyboy and Johnny were in the burning church and it was coming apart, so Johnny pushed Ponyboy out of the window to save him. “Johnny shoved me toward the window. “Get out!”” Johnny sacrificed himself so that he could save Ponyboy. He could have

People might not want such a young age group to read it because it is not appropriate for the age group. It exposes the teens to drugs that they shouldn’t be doing. Many of the people in the book smoke, and it might encourage these 8th graders to also smoke to look “tuff”. There are also some violent parts of the book, and it uses some bad language. It is violent in the first chapter when the socs jump Ponyboy for walking home by himself. The socs had tackled Ponyboy to the ground and pulled a knife on him. The book says, “It occurred to me then that they could kill me.” (Hinton 6 PDF). If the greasers hadn’t come to save Ponyboy, the socs might’ve badly hurt Ponyboy. Another time people were violent was during the rumble. Ponyboy was getting beaten a lot. In chapter 9, it says, “I couldn’t answer because the Soc, who was heavier than I took him for, had me pinned and was slugging the sense out of me.” (Hinton 122 PDF). The greasers and socs were fighting, instead of settling this out by talking. It would’ve been easier if they just talked it out or got along in the first