Comparing West Side Story and The Outsiders

607 Words2 Pages

West Side Story and The Outsiders West Side Story is a book about two gangs living in a large city. The Outsiders is a book with the same concept, two gangs that are archrivals. Even though two different authors wrote these books during two different time periods, they have the same story line. These books are realistic, because gang rivalry is still going on today. They are different, since they were written separately. Also, both these books have different problems between the main characters. Still, West Side Story and The Outsiders have many similarities. First, both books have two opposing gangs. In West Side Story, the Puerto Ricans make up the Sharks, and the Americans make up the Jets. In The Outsiders, the wealthy teenagers make up the Socs, and the low class youths make up the Greasers. Both gangs are rivals, constantly fighting to try and prove themselves superior to one another. One gang from each book, the Greasers and the Sharks, are typically the ones that are looked down upon by others. They are poor and usually cannot afford many things. On the other side, the Socs and the Jets are the superior gangs. They control most of the town, and normally beat up other gangs. "And you can't win against them no matter how hard you try, because they've got all the breaks and even whipping them isn't going to change that fact." pg. 11 The Outsiders In both books, these two gangs decide to have a rumble, a fight with all the members of the two gangs. This is one similarity between these books. Another thing in common with the books is that in a fight between the gangs, someone is killed. In West Side Story, during the rumble, Bernardo kills Riff. Tony takes his revenge by killing Bernardo. He does this because Riff was like a brother to Tony. Similarly, in The Outsiders, Bob was drowning Ponyboy. To protect his friend from harm, Johnny kills Bob with his switchblade. Because of the situation the boys had put themselves into, they needed to protect themselves, and this was the only way they thought might work. "I had to.

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Outsiders Book And Movie

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first thing is the movie obviously doesn’t show what Ponyboy is thinking. One could mistake Dally or Johnny, maybe even Two-Bit as main characters along with Ponyboy. The author must have wanted Ponyboy to be the main character, being that the book is about what Ponyboy does, and what he thinks, not what about Dally does after Johnny dies. Though interesting, showing how Dally robbed a store with a fake gun wasn’t in the original book. Like mentioned earlier, the Outsiders movie ended abruptly after Dally dies from the police gunning him down. In the book, Dally died at page 154 out of 180 pages. Each page in the Outsiders book gave important details about character, events, or paces, so missing twenty four pages of the Outsiders book made the movie feel short and very different. Finally, like mentioned earlier, there is no Johnny backstory. The makes Johnny feel more bland in the movie. A lot of details from Ponyboy’s thoughts and little flashback about Johnny let readers know this; Johnny is a strong person, but has fears in his life. In the movie, all watchers know about Johnny is that his parents are fighting, and that he is Ponyboy’s friend. Overall, that is the main things the movie had that the book

    Read More

  • The Outsiders Compare And Contrast

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    There are many similarities throughout the book and the movie. While reading the book and observing the movie, The Outsiders in the beginning they both started with the same line “ When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the moviehouse, I only had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.”(Hinton p.1) When Ponyboy and Johnny first met Cherry at the movies, the Socs found out that she was hanging out with the Greasers they were going to fight and Cherry told them that she didn’t like fights against anyone. After, killing the Soc, Bob and running away to the

    Read More

  • Compare The Outsiders

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Outsiders and The Wednesday Wars deal with misunderstandings among young people in the 1960’s and show how people can form friendships despite their differences. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is about two rival gangs, the Greasers and Socs. Ponyboy Curtis and some Greasers befriend Cherry Valance, a Soc. She spies on the Socs and helps out the Greasers. Ponyboy and his friend, Johnny Cade, become involved with the killing of a Soc, so they run away to an abandoned church. When the church catches on fire, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their friend Dallas Winston, save a few children who were trapped in the burning building. Johnny gets injured during the process and later dies. The boys are mentioned in the newspaper as heroes. The

    Read More

  • The Outsiders

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Outsiders is a book about Greasers And Socs. The Greasers are the poor east side kids they would wear their hair long and greasy and they will dress in blue jeans, T-shirts, or wear they shirttails out and wear a leather jacket and tennis shoes or boots. The Socs are the rich west side kids that worn nice clothes, drove nice cars, and had all the pretty lady’s. They both was gangs in Oklahoma. The Socs they would jump Greasers, wreck houses, and throw beer blasts for kicks.

    Read More

  • Sociological Theories In The Movie West Side Story

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    West Side Story tells the tale of a battle between two street gangs in New York, both competing to be the best, while also incorporating the impossible love between two people destined to hate each other, which ends in tragedy. The streets of New York are ran by an American gang

    Read More

  • Family Support In The Outsiders

    610 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Outsiders, an enthralling novel by S.E Hinton, is an excellent story about the hardships and triumphs experienced by the Greasers and the Socs two rival gangs. S.E Hinton tells a thrilling tale about the Socs and the Greasers that are two gangs and she characterize how they live. Ponyboy, his brother and his friends have to deal with the challenges relating to their environment. The three most important topics of The Outsiders are survival, social class and family support.

    Read More

  • Comparing Views on Stanley Milgram's Experiment on Obedience

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments of Obedience” was written by Diane Baumrind. Baumrind is a psychologist at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkley. Throughout her article, Baumrind attacks multiple aspects of Milgram’s experiment. She immediately states that the location of the experiment played a factor in the produced results (Baumrind 225). She continues in saying the lack of emotion and concern from the teacher caused heavy stress on the subjects. Baumrind also calls into question the supposed attempts of Milgram to allow the subjects to leave in a clear, whole state of mind (Baumrind 227). The affects the experiment would have on the subjects afterwards is also a point of concern for Baumrind. Lastly, Baumrind pleads for the subjects to be fully informed of the experiment they would be partaking in (Baumrind 229). However, Baumrind is not the only author who reviews the experiment. Ian Parker, “Obedience”, writes about the consequences Milgram himself experienced after the results of hi...

    Read More

  • Summary Of Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiments

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    On numerous accounts, Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments have proven to be unethical and incomparable to authentic examples of obedience (Baumrind 90; Parker 98-100). So persuade authors Ian Parker and Diana Baumrind in their respective articles, “Obedience” and “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on obedience.” In “Obedience,” Parker reasons via multiple scenarios that the trials conducted by Milgram do not provide a realistic presentation of the scenarios in which people will obey or disobey (101). Utilizing arguments such as the fact that the subjects might not have fully believed in the legitimacy of the shock machine used by Milgram and that the experiment merely compares what is expected to happen with what actually happened

    Read More

  • The Outsiders

    1889 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Outsiders is a book that changed the style of young adult writers because it went off from the genre that young adult writer were using during that time period. The reader sees the everyday problems that teenagers were going through, “I can’t take much more Johnny spoke my own feelings I’ll kill myself or something” (Hinton 47). Johnny felt unloved because his parents treat him bad and say hurtful things to him, but when Johnny is with the gang he feels loved because they embrace him, and let him stay at their house if he cannot bear to go home to his parents. So many writers were use to telling fairy tells and fables, the realism of the outsiders made it the first of its kind during the time period it was written. Todd Howard points this out in his book Understanding The Outsiders, “ Thus the overwhelming commercial success that The Outsiders enjoyed among teens shortly after its first publication, it sent astonished publishers scurrying to find writers who could duplicate the novel’s formula and gave a pause to literary critics” (Howard 8). Authors in the early sixty’s never thought about writing a book showing the gang and social class differences, and this is why The Outsiders was a successful book because it opened people’s eyes to the problems some...

    Read More

  • "Romeo and Juliet" and "West Side Story": A Thematic Comparison

    1190 Words  | 3 Pages

    In West Side Story, the premise is quite similar. The two rival gangs are the Jets- the Americans, and the Sharks- the Puerto Ricans. The Jets hate the sharks because they feel as if they are encroaching on their territory when they walk the streets of New York as easily as the Jets. The Jets and the Sharks have been in a constant state of uproar since the Puerto Ricans first started moving to America and the gangs were formed.... ...

    Read More

  • A Shocking Surprise: Dr. Stanley Milgram

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Milgram started the experiment in 1963 by recruiting males through a newspaper article promising them $4.50. The article read:

    Read More

  • Examples Of Obedience To Authority By Stanley Milgram

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    The controls within the Milgram’s experiment was the shock machine was kept the same. But more importantly the voice recording was the same every time. The scientist actor also tried to replicate every meeting the same way so as not to change any variable. Controls seemed very important in this experiment. Because dealing with actual people has many possible outcomes that could happen. Saying something not quite the same could give the test subject a different attitude towards the actor in the room. Both the actor in the room and the actor scientist had to be very

    Read More

  • Border Wall Bias

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    The quote, ”So what’s going on here? Is the famous wall being built?”(Kessler), demonstrates that the intended audience is anyone who has questions on the current progress of the wall. Despite constant bias, the Kessler builds a credibility by citing reliable people and organizations such as “Customs and Border Protection Acting Deputy Commissioner Ronald D. Vitiello” (Kessler). The source is credible because the author utilizes quotes from people with authority. Kessler displays his bias against the wall by stating, “Not to get too technical here, but the definition of a wall is a continuous structure with a common base, while a fence is something that has posts and can be seen through”(Kessler). The author completely opposes Donald Trump throughout the article and this quote demonstrates the author’s willingness to say anything that discredits President Trump and his administration. The article states, “As far as we can tell, from review of local news articles, only 33 miles of new barrier… would be funded under the 2018 bill”(Kessler). A statement such as this could cause the reader to look down upon the new 2018 bill as well as President Trump for not completing what he promised. This will have a negative effect because the audience is being misled to think that any progress on the wall is negative. Other authors could interpret the information as positive and present it in such a way. This article is slightly effective because it contains skewed statistics that can persuade the reader into agreeing with that the author believes. The critical reader should doubt the way that the facts were provided in the article. In this case, the author is at fault for the perpetuation of misinformation because he distorts the facts to appear a certain way that supports his

    Read More

  • What Are Petroleum Products, And What Is Petroleum Used For?

    1667 Words  | 4 Pages

    For people to be able to use petroleum, it must first be drilled. Countries who can drill for

    Read More

  • BMW

    1885 Words  | 4 Pages

    BMW has captured the attention of automobile drivers from all around the world with their “Ultimate Driving Machine.” The BMW Company was originally established in Germany and has extended nationally reaching over 12 countries. With Germany and the United States being the top two target countries, BMW has established their products as a combination of luxury, safety, and comfort with product lines to suit all styles of living. Revenues have been increasing each year since before 1996 with profits coming from product line of automobiles and motorcycles. In 2001, BMW came out with a new product group, the Mini. The Mini also contributed to the revenue increase in 2001. BMW has current developments in their sports cars, the Z8. BMW has created a trustworthy name for the automobiles they produce and has all the potential to continue their success in the future.

    Read More

More about Comparing West Side Story and The Outsiders

Open Document