Outsiders Point Of View

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Recommended: Literary analysis on the outsiders

The point of view for the entirety of the novel is first person, that affects the way we see events by having pushed through the lense of what PonyBoy can see and only being able to get his personal thoughts and not the thoughts of other characters. An example of PonyBoy’s point of veiw blocking us from knowing the feelings and intentions of other characters can be found on chapter 3 “I turned and ran out the door and down the street as fast as I could. Darry screamed, "Pony, I didn't mean to!" but I was at the lot by then and pretended I couldn't hear. I was running away. It was plain to me that Darry didn't want me around. And I wouldn't stay if he did. He wasn't ever going to hit me again” and it does this by not allowing us to see what …show more content…

Despite this, the point of view chosen for The Outsiders was more or less right on the nose perfectly inline with the type of story being told. The first person perspective limited the author’s ability to make a world but her setting was simple and non-descript, it never really mattered to the plot what specific city The Outsiders happened in, but she did play into what that perspective can do well, host massive interactions with a large cast of characters and not have the reader feeling over wellmened. Even though there is an entire gang you keep up with over the course of the book, you don’t get that rushed feeling of to much input from the large a-ray of characters because it’s all filtered through PonyBoy. Another example of always seeing things through PonyBoys point of view affecting feelings a knowledge can be found in chapter 3 “ I fought again desperately but only sucked in water. I'm drowning, I thought, they've gone too far... A red haze filled my mind and I slowly relaxed. The next thing I knew I was lying on the pavement beside the fountain, coughing water and gasping. I lay there weakly, breathing in air and spitting out water.” because we will never know what was going through the heads of the attacking socs or Johnny when he stabbed Bob, we will never really feel any attachment or anger towards Johnny for stabbing

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