preview

The Outsiders Conflicts

Good Essays

The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton was published in 1967. The Outsiders is about a fourteen year old named Ponyboy Curtis, the youngest member of a gang called the Greasers. The novel starts off with members of their rival gang, the Socs (short for socials), and they jump Ponyboy when he’s leaving a theater. Ponyboy’s brothers, Sodapop and Darry, and several other Greasers rescue Ponyboy and the Socs flee. The Socs are richer and they have a better impression than the Greasers. The main conflict in The Outsiders is man vs man and an example of this would be the rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. The two gangs don’t get along and members from both gangs fight each other like when Johnny and Bobby fought and Bobby ended up dying; Johnny was just defending himself. There are many members of the Greasers. There is “Dally” or Dallas Winston, the hot-headed, sharp looking, roughest member of the Greasers, who lived in New York City for three years. Sodapop Curtis, Ponyboy’s second oldest brother (sixteen years old), dropped out of high school, and now works in a gas station. Darrel or “Darry” Curtis is …show more content…

The plot is great, it has a lot of action, and suspense. I also like the way Hinton describes the characters in detail, and makes you feel like you can actually see the character when she describes them. I would definitely recommend the teachers to keep teaching it because the novel has a good moral to it. It teaches you to not judge anyone immediately, how violence only makes things worse, and how to solve your problems. My favorite character is Johnny because he reminds me of myself. He sacrificed his life to save the children trapped in the church, and he stood up for Ponyboy and himself when he stabbed Bob. The symbols and allusions in the book are meaningful like when Johnny tells Ponyboy to stay gold right before he dies. It’s a reference to Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can

Get Access