The Outsiders Literary Analysis If someone thinks life is tough in today's day and age try living in the 60s when stereotypes controlled your everyday life, they had to worry about getting jumped everywhere they went, and they just have a rough life. In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton the greasers and the socs live on two different sides of the town. Both in the city part of Oklahoma. The greasers were definitely on the poor side which would be the east side. The socs on the other hand were the west side rich kids. They grew up with money and never lost it. That is why they see the greasers as different …show more content…
kids because they were less wealthy. The setting affects the characters because of the fact that they live in Oklahoma they have to wear their leather jackets and jeans because it is cold a lot. Also they have that south western accent. The setting even affects the characters activities because one of the only things they can do for fun is go to the movies so that is how a lot of problems in the book are started. Furthermore, One of the main characters in the book is Ponyboy, he is 14 years old. He lives with his two greaser brothers Soda (short for sodapop) and Darry (short for Darrell). Ponyboy thinks his brother Darry doesn’t like him, as this quote explains. “Darry love me? I thought of those hard pale eyes, Soda was wrong for once, I thought. Darry doesn’t love anyone or anything, Except maybe Soda.” Ponyboy sometimes doesn’t use his head because obviously Darry loves him. He is only strict because he is a 20 year old trying to keep everyone out of trouble so that their family can stay together. Also, Ponyboy always feels like he can trust Soda, “...and I always have Soda to talk things over with.” This quote from the text is saying that Pony feels like Soda loves him way more than Darry loves him. So this leads to Pony having lots of trust in Sodapop. Soda is Ponyboy’s comfort zone whenever something is happening is Pony’s life. That includes problems with Darry, the gang, or even the Socs. Going back to the text, “ Darry wheeled around and slapped me so hard, that it knocked me against the door.” After everything that had been happening with their family, this was it for Ponyboy. He would end up running away because he had never been hit by anyone in his family. Ponyboy and Darry’s relationship was still very shaky, although Pony always knew he could trust Soda. Moving on, The whole story line follows the stereotypes of the 60s, also the gangs of those stereotypes did not like each other.
“Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped… We get jumped by the Socs.” The Socs are rich kids who are supposed to be the kids everyone in the city are proud of, but really they are a violent gang who break many laws. At least the greasers are all good friends and they stick together. Also, this is when the war between the two groups broke loose. “ ‘I killed him,’ Johnny said ‘I killed that boy.’” To the Socs this wasn’t like he was defending himself. This was a Greaser killing a Soc. So this would start a war, the Greasers would get jumped more than they ever had before. They would plan a big fight, if the Socs won everything would stay the same, meaning they could keep going over to the Greasers part of town, but if the Greasers won the Socs would have to stay on their side only. Overall, the story line is on the inside lifes of the Greasers as they continue to have problems with the west side rich kids.
To conclude, The setting affects the characters because there is two different sides of town, the Greasers are on the east and the Socs are on the west. The setting in The Outsiders is so important because of the fact that they live in Oklahoma determines the way they talk, the way they act, and even the way they dress. So this is how Pony continues to struggle with his family and everything that is going down in Oklahoma outside of his house in the worn down neighborhood on the east side of
town.
The book The Outsiders is the realistic story about this between two very different groups in a town in the United States: the poor Greasers from the east side, and the Socs, whitch is what the greasers call the socials, the richer boys from the other side of the town. Ponyboy Curtis is the narrator of the story, a 14-year-old boy who lives with his two older brothers, Darry and Soda. He is a pretty good athlete and student, but is not treated the same as the richer students at his school. Ponyboy uses to have long hair that he greases back, a symbol of being in the outsider gang. He is unhappy with his situation, because Darry is too protective of him and he always has to be afraid of Socs attacking him.
Ponyboy explains that, “We get jumped by the Socs. I’m not sure how you spell it, but it’s the Socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids. It’s like the term, ‘Greaser,’ which is used to class all us boys on the East Side,” (Hinton 2). This quote tells the reader that Ponyboy lives on the East Side, making him a Greaser. Pony says that Socials are the enemies of Greasers. The Socials, or Socs, are rich, so they live on the West Side. In The Outsiders, Holling tells the reader that “you’d come to my house- which my father had figured out was right smack in the middle of town. Not on the north side. Not on the south side. Just somewhere in between,” (Schmidt 3). The sides in Holling’s town are opposite to the ones in Pony’s town. Holling’s town has north and south sides, while Ponyboy’s town has east and west sides. Also, Holling lives in The Perfect House. This means that Holling’s house is perfect; everything is clean, the house is freshly painted, and the furniture looks untouched. Ponyboy lives in a small house, which is dirty and messy; the opposite of Holling’s
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.
Setting does affect character development and storyline in The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. If the setting in The Outsiders were different than the East side of Oklahoma then the greasers and the socs wouldn’t be their tough, mean, selves.They would be completely different then they are now. The setting really is fatal to all of the characters and the storyline of The
Assumptions made based solely upon theses stereotypes are constant throughout The Outsiders. Ponyboy and the other Greasers assume that since the Socs are well-off financially, their problems are trivial. This helped to perpetuate stereotypes plastered onto the Socs. Since the Socs were thought of as model teens in
On pg. 2, the text states that, “I’m not sure how you spell it, but it’s the abbreviation for the socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids.” This quote shows how the Socs are viewed by the Outsiders as the wealthy kids that live on the West side. In the book, the Socs are seen as the people who jump the Greasers, wreck houses, and throw beer blasts. The Socs have a mixed opinion by society. In the newspaper, the Socs are in one article for being a disgrace to society and in the next article they are a pleasure to have in the community. The text states that on pg. 38, “You Greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated.” This is a quote stated by a Socs girl named Cherry, who describes the Greasers she and a friend met at the movie theatre. Cherry’s perception shows how the Socs are viewed verses the the Greasers. Also, Greasers have preconceived perceptions about the Socs
According to Chris Pine, “The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.” This quote means you can choose how you view people and things.This relates to the Outsiders because the novel is about how you choose to view people. The Outsiders is about how people shouldn’t judge others based on stereotypes and they should get to know them first.
The Outsiders identified the 60’s, often there would be violence between groups and often involving a group’s social class. For instance, the tensions between the Socs and Greasers is violent, and this will lead to Bob’s death, Johnny’s death, as well as many injuries throughout both gangs. The book The Outsiders is written by S.E. Hinton and is portrayed through the eyes of a high school student in Tulsa, OK where S.E. Hinton grew up. Hinton began writing The Outsiders in 1965 at the age of 17 and the book was finally published in 1967 when she was 19. The difference in perspective upon the society and social class creates issues throughout The Outsiders and they assume the problems will be solved with violence,
Greasers were the lowest among the society. The society had negative thoughts towards Greasers, because there were not many things people expected from the Greasers other than doing bad things such as stealing, having rumble, and other bad things that happened around the society. Not every Greaser does bad things, however, the Greasers took the blame for anything bad even if it was the Socs fault. It is because everyone expected the Greasers to do bad things instead of the Socs. Even though the Greasers had a bad reputation, they didn’t care, but instead they enjoyed their lives. Sometimes the Greasers do bad things but only for fun and because it was the society’s expectations. If the Greasers did something good, no one would expect or believe the Greasers did it. No one would ever expect the Greasers to be heroes, just like the man whose kids were saved by Johnny, Ponyboy, and Dallas. “’Mrs. O’Briant and I think you were sent straight from heaven. Or are you just professional heroes or something?’ Sent from heaven? Had he gotten look at Dallas? ‘No, we’re greasers.’” (Page...
The movie, The Outsiders, starts with the Curtis parents on their weekly, Saturday evening drive to the baking store to buy some ingredients for their boys’ favorite Sunday morning, breakfast treat: chocolate cake. The Curtis boys love their chocolate cake for Sunday breakfast not only because they love it, but also because they appreciate how hard their parents have to work to save the monies necessary for the morsels that put smiles on their faces!
Throughout life individuals face many challenges testing their values and personality one situation at a time. In the evocative novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton themes of growing up and innocence are shown. Ponyboy is not your average 14 year old he is part of a gang known to many as the Greasers. He encounters many situations testing his values and beliefs. Having lost both his parents recently he and his brothers stick together like a true family but this relationship is tested when Darry hits Ponyboy. He also experiences the loss several close friends in a very short period of time. Throughout this novel, Ponyboy encounters many life changing experiences that prove he is a dynamic character.
The Outsiders is about the life of a 14-year-old boy. The book tells the story of Ponyboy “Curtis” and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Ponyboy and his two brothers, Darrel (Darry), who is 20, and Sodapop, who is 16, have recently lost their parents in an automobile accident. Pony and Soda are allowed to stay under Darry's guardianship as long as they all behave themselves. The boys are greasers, a class term that refers to the young men on the East Side, the poor side of town. The greasers' rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the "West-side rich kids."
This book showed the struggle between rich and poor. The two main groups of the story were the Socs and the greasers. The Socs are in the upper class while the greasers are the poor ones that dislike the Socs because they have more money, better cars, and act like they are better than the greasers. The Outsiders is a good story by S.E. Hinton that shows the struggles of growing up Hinton did a fine job with the character development, the plot, and the theme with a few flaws.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is about a group called the greasers, a group called the socs and what’s different between the groups and what’s the same. The greasers are the kids with little money, who feel a lot, and are tough. The socs are rich kids with not enough emotions and they never get in trouble. The Greasers have it worse because they have broken families, are always getting jumped by the socs, and are expected to steal and be rude because of their backgrounds.
In S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders Socs and Greasers are enemies. Society put them against each other and labeled them. Greasers are the poor, dirty, no-good kids that nobody wants around. Socs are stuck-up, perfect, rich kids who looks down on everybody. In the book, two boys- Johnny and Ponyboy- start some trouble with a couple of Socs, and Bob is killed. They have to run from the police, all while the tension between Greasers and Socs is thicker than ever. Throughout the novel, it explains how “things are rough all over”. The Greasers have it the worse because they feel emotions so harshly, they are constantly getting jumped by the Socs, and they only have each other because their families are broken.