The Outsiders Conflict Essay

Can a story truly exist or at the very least be interesting without conflict? The answer is “no.” Even small children’s books have a conflict, and some books have even more than one. An example of this would be The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. There are many different types of conflicts that can be found in any book. A few conflicts that can be seen in books or stories are man versus man ,man versus society, man versus nature, and many more. The book The Outsiders shows 3 conflicts including group versus group, man versus man, and man versus self. The first conflict is the main conflict in the The Outsiders. The main conflict in this book is group versus group, or to be more specific, the Socs versus the Greasers. As stated in Novels for Students

Man versus man is not exclusively due to the fact that there are two gangs; there are even conflicts between people in the same gangs. In the Greasers Ponyboy and Darry are always disagreeing. For example, Ponyboy states, ”Darry didn't like me... he had driven me away that night... he had hit me... Darry hollered at me all the time... he didn't give a hang about me....”(Hinton 84). Maybe this is just normal sibling rivalry in 1967, but when it continues throughout the story and does not stop until the end of the book, it can be considered a problem. Darry and Ponyboy work out their conflict eventually, although if they could have worked it out sooner Ponyboy and Johnny possibly never would have been out the night Johnny killed Bob. This is the most violent man versus man conflict in the story. As stated in Novels for Students ”Johnny and Ponyboy are accosted by drunken Socs. After they try to drown Ponyboy, Johnny kills one of them with his knife” (“The Outsiders 283) Clearly Johnny does not mean to kill Bob, the Soc, but because of their group conflict and his previous experience with the group, he does it out of fear and self-defense. This particular incident in the story sets off another conflict ; the conflict between individuals leads some characters to perform a self-evaluation, which commonly leads to self versus self

For starters, Ponyboy, the main character, must decide whether he is a real greaser or not. He does not see himself as a typical greaser. As stated in Novels for Students "Pony is a good student, a track star, and a greaser.” (“The Outsiders 285) Ponyboy describes Greasers in this way: “Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in awhile.”(Hinton 4) But Darry says Thus, Ponyboy, while he is identified as a Greaser by others, struggles because he is not like many others in his group.. Even the rich Socs have problems with themselves. Bob, the character who is killed by Johnny, is behaving the way he is because he craves attention from his parents. Bob had not ever been told he is doing anything wrong. Randy says to Ponyboy, “They [Bob’s parents] spoiled him rotten. He kept trying to make someone tell him "No" and they never did. …That was what he wanted.… To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something really solid to stand on." (Hinton 106) Bob struggles because he only wants someone to lay down the rules. Since no one does that for him, he does whatever he wants, hoping to get that attention; but it backfires and this leads to his death and eventually leads to Johnny's death as well. Johnny is a vital member of the group, so when he dies characters like Dally have the toughest