Struggle and Conflict in The Outsiders Essay

The Outsiders

The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton, is the story of Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser in the 1960s who lives a fairly ordinary life until one day, he and his friend Johnny are jumped by several Socs, members of their rival gang, and his world is turned upside down. This book shows the struggles that young people have to face through the themes of class divisions, death of loved ones, and loss of innocence.

S.E. Hinton is one of the few authors in American history that actually acknowledges the social divisions that are so prevalent in so many cities. One literary critic says, It is rare-to-unique among juvenile books to find a novel confronting the class hostilities which have intensified since the Great Depression (Gerhardt 203). This shows the rich vs. poor hostilities that define life for the greasers. The greasers get jumped by Socs almost every day it seems like, and have to stay together to avoid getting beaten up. Ponyboy says Greasers cant walk alone too much or theyll get jumped (Hinton 2). Even at fourteen, Ponyboy has to worry about getting jumped by five people while walking home from the movies. So far, Ponyboy has not been seriously injured while being jumped, but if one looks at someone like Johnny, who has been permanently traumatized by the Socs, then one can really start to see the effect that these conflicts can have. The conflict between the Greasers and Socs affects both sides too.

While majority of the story focuses on how the Socs are constantly picking on the Greasers, the Socs suffer from the fighting too. Cherry says to Ponyboy that Randy is not going

to the rumble because Bob was his best buddy. Since grade school (Hinton 128). She goes on to talk about how they are both upset because Bob was good person when he was sober, and that Ponyboy only knew his bad side. This shows that even though the Socs were largely demonized throughout the novel, they are actual people too. Ponyboy starts to realize this after Randy talks to him at the Tasty Freeze when he says to Two-Bit, He aint a Soches just a guy (Hinton 118). After this, Ponyboy seems to almost become friends with Randy and Cherry, showing that sometimes people can bridge social differences and come together. Although Ponyboy becomes friends with a couple of the Socs, the fighting still continues with the rumble and the other fights that are sure to come afterward.

The second major struggle that Ponyboy and the others face is the loss of loved ones. After the fire in the church, Johnny is fatally wounded and later dies in the hospital. This so deeply upsets Ponyboy that he almost cannot accept the reality of it, as shown when he says, Johnny was dead. But he wasnt. That still body back in the hospital wasnt Johnny (Hinton 150). Ponyboy is a daze for weeks after this. He refuses to believe that Johnny is gone, and he works himself into a delirious state where he believes that he is the one who killed Bob. This haze is compounded when he sees Dally gunned down by police after robbing a grocery store. Ponyboy eventually comes back to his senses when he opens Gone with the Wind and finds that Johnny has left him a note telling him to stay gold. Ponyboy realizes that Johnny is not the only person feeling this way and he decides to write his English theme about what happened to Johnny. He says to himself Suddenly it wasnt only a personal thing to me. I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities, boys with black eyes who jumped at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better. I could see boys going down under streetlights because they

were mean and tough and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it, and they wouldnt believe you if you did (Hinton 179). He basically resolves to tell the world what happened to Johnny, starting with his English teacher.

The third theme of this story is the loss of innocence. Ponyboy starts off being more or less carefree. Sure, he gets jumped by the Socs a couple times, but it does not really faze him. It is not until Johnny kills Bob that things start to get ugly. While they are in the church in Windrixville, Ponyboy says to Johnny just last night we were walkin Cherry and Marcia over to Two-Bits. Just last night we were layin in the lot, lookin up at the stars and dreaming (Hinton 74). This indicates how unreal the situation is to Ponyboy because he is in so far over his head. However he later says For the first timeI relaxed. We could take whatever was coming now (Hinton 75). He and Johnny buckle down and get ready to deal with the consequences of their actions. One critic says on the topic of Ponyboys maturation Innocence cannot escape coming to terms with life which does not necessarily mean being corrupted. The opposite of innocence is not corruption, of course but knowledge (Daly 33). This shows that while Ponyboy is not necessarily corrupted by these events, he does gain knowledge, knowledge of the world outside of his everyday life in his neighborhood. He learns that people die, but you have to move on and deal with it. This shows the loss of innocence that Ponyboy goes through over the course of the story.

So in conclusion, The Outsiders shows the struggles and conflicts that young people have to deal with often out of view of adults through the themes of class divisions, loss of loved ones, and the loss of innocence.