Essay On The Outsiders Identity

Where do you belong

Once you find your own identity, you can choose to either help create or destroy the identities of others. The identities that come with being in a group are a frequent theme in the novel “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. The novel is about a gang of friends and how they have to stick up for each other against the opposing gangs. Being part of a group can affect many parts of yourself. Your identity in how you act, your appearance, and your influence on others. Identity is very important to the book, because everyone in the gang might have their own identity and personalities, however they are all united under one group identity.

Identities are a big theme in The Outsiders because the entire book is about fitting into different groups. There are the gang of Soc's who are rich kids with nice cars and nice clothes, and there are the Greaser's who are a gang of lower class teenagers

The Greaser's are in the lower class, and like to grease up the hair (hence the name), and usually wear denim. The Soc's on the other hand are richer and ride around town in Mustangs, and wear nice sweaters and shirts. In the book, Ponyboy is attacked right at the beginning by a group of Soc’s. Pony had never seen these Soc’s before so they could not of seen him before either. This means that they purly recognized him by his Greaser look since they dress the same. However, they do not just dress similar because they are in the same social class, it is probably because they are all in the same gang. For example in my old public school, my family was one of more better off ones. So I could wear nice shoes everyday, however I did not because I did not want to be different from the rest. I wore normal tennis shoes everyday to fit in and be a part of the group. These groups all have different opinions on how the they should dress or act, however both of these factors are determined by how the members influence each