S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders was written when the author was sixteen years old and attending high school. She witnessed the struggles of her peers, especially the violence between the different social class gangs, in school and began to write about them. The Outsiders began as a simple short story and quickly flourished into a novel due to Hinton’s irate state of mind regarding her own life. Her writing became a way to cope and work through her feelings about the violent situations surrounding her life. Hinton wanted to create a story that realistically portrayed the situations and people around her that she could share with others on a greater scale (Dear Reader). The author herself was friends with both Greasers and Socs and saw firsthand
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Near the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy references the book Great Expectations that he had to read for his English class. He compares himself to the main character Pip in how both of them are judged harshly due to their lesser status by those above them and this shows how Ponyboy feels distanced from others due to his status as a greaser. In class, Ponyboy does not think about it when he pulls out a switchblade to dissect a worm, but his classmates immediately label him a “hood” just because he is different from them (Hinton 15). Another important, if not the most important, literary allusion in The Outsiders is presented in the form of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that Ponyboy quotes to Johnny. This poem becomes crucial to Johnny’s character development, especially towards the end of his life when he writes a letter to Ponyboy saying, “you’re gold when you’re a kid…everything’s new, dawn,” and “that’s gold…it’s a good way to be,” (Hinton 178). Johnny believes that the innocence children have is what is “gold” and Ponyboy should keep whatever innocence he has in his life and share it with others, like Dally. Johnny has his eyes opened to new possibilities by Ponyboy when they share an understanding about appreciating the little things in life, …show more content…
Immediately after the novel starts, two terms are introduced to the reader, “Greasers” which are the wild long-haired poor boys of the East Side and their opposites: the richer “Socs” that live on the West-side (Hinton 2-3). Kids throughout the community are each labelled as one or the other and that designation shapes the kind of person they grow up to be. For the Greasers, an important quality for them to have is to be “tuff” which is completely different from being tough or rough. “Tuff” means to be sharp or cool, and this goes a long way in the Greasers’ side of town (Hinton 12). The Greasers have created their own way of speaking to each other through these types of words and phrases to better convey how the Greasers are their own tight-knit community. Ponyboy, as the narrator, uses the informal speech and vernacular he would use when talking to his friends, making The Outsiders all the more well-crafted in regards to the characters and their credibility. Ponyboy even criticizes how another gang speaks by calling them uneducated when a member calls a fighter a “bopper” instead of a “rumbler” (Hinton 140). His disbelief that someone does not know, what is to him, a simple term for someone who fights makes Ponyboy a more credible young character in the novel due to his willingness to judge others not like him
Near the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy references the book Great Expectations that he had to read for his English class. He compares himself to the main character Pip in how both of them are judged harshly due to their lesser status by those above them and this shows how Ponyboy feels distanced from others due to his status as a greaser. In class, Ponyboy does not think about it when he pulls out a switchblade to dissect a worm, but his classmates immediately label him a “hood” just because he is different from them (Hinton 15). Another important, if not the most important, literary allusion in The Outsiders is presented in the form of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that Ponyboy quotes to Johnny. This poem becomes crucial to Johnny’s character development, especially towards the end of his life when he writes a letter to Ponyboy saying, “you’re gold when you’re a kid…everything’s new, dawn,” and “that’s gold…it’s a good way to be,” (Hinton 178). Johnny believes that the innocence children have is what is “gold” and Ponyboy should keep whatever innocence he has in his life and share it with others, like Dally. Johnny has his eyes opened to new possibilities by Ponyboy when they share an understanding about appreciating the little things in life, …show more content…
Immediately after the novel starts, two terms are introduced to the reader, “Greasers” which are the wild long-haired poor boys of the East Side and their opposites: the richer “Socs” that live on the West-side (Hinton 2-3). Kids throughout the community are each labelled as one or the other and that designation shapes the kind of person they grow up to be. For the Greasers, an important quality for them to have is to be “tuff” which is completely different from being tough or rough. “Tuff” means to be sharp or cool, and this goes a long way in the Greasers’ side of town (Hinton 12). The Greasers have created their own way of speaking to each other through these types of words and phrases to better convey how the Greasers are their own tight-knit community. Ponyboy, as the narrator, uses the informal speech and vernacular he would use when talking to his friends, making The Outsiders all the more well-crafted in regards to the characters and their credibility. Ponyboy even criticizes how another gang speaks by calling them uneducated when a member calls a fighter a “bopper” instead of a “rumbler” (Hinton 140). His disbelief that someone does not know, what is to him, a simple term for someone who fights makes Ponyboy a more credible young character in the novel due to his willingness to judge others not like him