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Minor Characters In S. E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders'

Decent Essays

S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was 16. Despite her young age, she showed an extremely mature insight and perspective. When I first read this story, I thought it was just about two social groups that don’t get along, but now I think more deeply about it, it’s really about how people are more similar than they first think they are. When Pony first encounters Cherry at the movies, he is nervous because she is a soc which is the rival group from the greasers. Even though Randy is a minor character, we learn how much he cares about his friends, just like all the greasers care about each other. When you look at the dynamics of the family, you can see how the same issues exist within a greater family that exist in a socs family. When we first read The Outsiders, the two groups seem very different, but if you read it a second time (or 50th like I have), you’ll see how similar they actually are. …show more content…

This red-haired young girl seems very different from a greasy haired boy. While they talk at the movies Pony tells Cherry about Johnny’s getting jumped. While Pony is thinking that only the greasers have a tough life, on page 35 we see how Cherry’s life is full of problems, “‘I’ll tell you something Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you’ve never even heard of. You want to know something?’ She looked me straight in the eye. ‘Things are rough all over.”’ Even though her problems are different, she, just like Pony and all of his friends, is dealing with issues that complicate her life. It’s not just Cherry who demonstrates the similarities between people, we see this in other

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