Outcast Theme in a Novel, a Film and a Song

Authors, to illustrate the issues with society, usually use the outcast, a figure banished from or disliked by the community. The person who stands out or comes off as different, usually gets the title of outcast. Ruby Bridges, a smart African-American girl attending an all white-person school, and even Steve Jobs, growing up as kid who liked to tinker with objects and who never had many friends, were great modern examples of outcasts. The constant human condition of needing to feel more powerful than others drives people to call others, “outcasts.” The Outsiders, a great novel about outcasts, uses a group of people, the greasers, as the outcasts of the story. The Waterboy, an unpopular 1998 movie about a boy who stutters, shows the extent the outcast will go just to try to fit in. Finally, the song, “Don’t Laugh At Me”, by Mark Wills, describes the feelings of an outcast. These three examples of the outcast archetype, describe the feelings of an outcast trying to live in modern society.

The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, a wonderful, modern novel about social divisions causing conflict in society, describes a group, the greasers, feeling like outcasts because of the constant pressure and ridicule put on them by a different group, the Socs. The greasers, typical middle-to-lower class citizens living in Oklahoma, constantly fear encountering the Socs, upper-class socialites, because of the constant need for the Socs to feel more powerful. The Socs believe the greasers are the outcasts; however, the greasers sometimes believe the Socs are the outcasts, when the Socs come to the greasers’ side of the town. In the beginning of the novel Ponyboy Curtis appears as the outcast of the greasers because he succeeds in academics. Livin...

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...g out how to power through life even with the mental setbacks he faces. Finally, “Don’t Laugh At Me” uses truthful words describing the feelings of an outcast. Throughout literature, religion, myth and folk lord, the presence of an outcast usually exists. This outcast may eventually either withdraw from society or find their way into society and survive. In the majority of the stories, the outcast finds their way into society and survives, the typical happy ending. Without an “underdog” in the story, the people who save the outcast lose credibility and power. For example The Mud Dogs, the “underdogs” of The Waterboy, won their game, Bobby played on the team helping to raise support. A well-written novel with the outcast archetype plays to the reader’s emotions; thus evoking illogical, but powerfully resonating responses; the need for the outcast to succeed/survive.