Friendship In The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton

Friends are, in some cases more important than family. Friends may love you more than your family ever will. This is shown in the novel The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. The Outsiders tells the story of boys that are living a dangerous life. Violence and crime were reluctantly apart of their lives. The protagonist, Ponyboy, was one of the many boys influenced by this lifestyle. His parents had pasted away and he didn't really get along with his brothers all the time. At times the only person there for him was his best friend Johnny. Johnny got abused and rejected at home, so Ponyboy was the only family he had. Hinton presents the idea that children in those situations, friends are the closest thing they have to family. She uses characterisation, …show more content…
I remembered his voice: I been carryin’ a heater. It ain’t loaded, but it sure does help a bluff…Dally raised the gun, and I thought: You blasted fool, they don't know you're only bluffing. And even as the policeman’s gun split into the night I knew that’s what Dally wanted.” The whole plot is based on friendship. How Johnny and Ponyboy get through it together, how Dally can’t handle Johnny gone, all because of friendship. When you live in such awful standards as them, continuously being judged, the bond of friendship is much stronger because not only they are your friends, they’d kill for you and you have so much more to relate to. Hinton uses plot to idolise friendship as something more than it is for these characters. 

The book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton tells a story of disadvantaged boys being judged by society consistently, resulting in violent behaviour. Hinton uses characterisation, dialogue and plot to create good characters that the reader grows to care for. Friendship is one of the main themes of this book because it links in with all three techniques stated. In having friends like that you feel needed and part of a kind of