The Outsiders Vs. The Socs

The poor vs. the rich. The good vs. the bad. The Greaser vs. The Socs. In The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy learns that fixing mistakes is important no matter what the consequences are. The Outsides is about two 14 year old boys, Ponyboy and Johnny, that are faced with the task to either run away from their mistakes or to confront them even in the worst of times. The story’s theme truly starts when Johnny defends Ponyboy from the Socs. Johnny decides to pull out his knife and mistakenly he kills one of the Socs. They end up running away to the country in which they think that they are safe. While they are there a fire starts and Johnny heroically saves the children that are in the building, although, this ends up putting Johnny into the hospital. While he is there Ponyboy learns the power of “staying gold” and fixing their mistakes. All they thought about was Bob’s death and what was going to happen to them. They ran away think that this would fix the problem but it only made it worse. Once they are in an old country church building they realize that they cannot stay there forever, so they start think about what they are going to say. “Testify that the Socs were drunk and looking for a fight and that you fought back in self-defense” (86). This helps to show when they started to realize that they

Ponyboy made the courageous decision to go to court and to testify that he was the result to Bob’s death. “Stay gold Ponyboy” are the words from Johnny that set the trigger off for Ponyboy and tells him he needs to do the right thing. Johnny was a good person and after saving the children in the fire and risking his own life for them everyone knew it. Ponyboy admits it to himself and then admits it to court without any consequences. This shows that even when you do not do the the best thing the consequences to not always end for the