The Outsiders Characters
Get to know the characters: Understand the characters in The Outsiders.
Article written by Ugo Juliet
Former Lecturer. Author of multiple books. Degree from University Of Nigeria, Nsukka.
‘The Outsiders’ is a story of youngsters in Tusla, a small Oklahoma town split into two gangs, divided by money, tastes and attitude.
Key Facts about The Outsiders
- Title: The Outsiders
- Author: S. E. Hinton
- When written: S. E. Hinton started writing the novel in 1965
- Published: 1967
- Genre: Young adult / Fiction
- Setting: Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1960s
- Climax: The church fire where Johnny and Ponyboy were hiding
- Original Language: English
- Protagonist: Ponyboy Curtis
- Antagonist: Bob Sheldon
- Pages: 224
S. E. Hinton and The Outsiders
The novel talks about the rivalry between two groups of teenagers -The Socs’ and the greasers. The soc’s idea of having a good time is beating up Greasers like Ponyboy Curtis, the novel’s protagonist. Ponyboy knows what to expect and knows he can count on his brothers and friends – until the night someone takes things totally out of context. ‘The Outsiders’ is one of those few classic books that almost everyone reads in high school: ‘The Great Gatsby‘, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four‘.
This is a 1967 novel which follows two rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs, in an American high school. The author started writing the book when she was only 15, basically and effectively launching the young adult fiction market. The book sold over 15 million copies to date and was made into a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983. The movie stars Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, and Diane Lane.
S.E. Hinton doesn’t care if you didn’t like ‘The Outsiders‘ tragic ending. The death of Bob Sheldon, a Soc, and two greasers Johnny and Dally made many readers of the book very sad. After they have decided to leave, the church catches fire, injuring them while Johnny dies in hospital. In anguish, Dally runs out and robs a grocery store. This led to a confrontation with the police, who shot and killed him.
The book is an insightful, dramatic demonstration of class conflict in America. Still, when asked why Johnny and Dally had to die, Hinton, who is obviously on Twitter, responded, “because I am a stone cold bitch.”
Books related to The Outsiders
‘The Outsiders’ is a young adult fiction book written by S. E. Hinton about Ponyboy and his friends, called the Greasers, who usually fight against a rival gang called the Socs. One day, theSocs attacked the narrator of the story, Ponyboy, and Johnny, his friend. Johnny kills one of them, and then he and Ponyboy run away to hide in an abandoned church. When the church became engulfed with flames, the boys risked their lives, saving a group of children trapped inside. Johnny dies from the wounds gotten from the fire, and Ponyboy grieves his loss and decides to write about his experiences.
There are many iconic books like ‘The Outsiders’. Here are some of them – ‘The Outsider‘ by Stephen King, ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay‘ by Robert Frost, ‘The Giver‘ by Lois Lowry, ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ by Stephen Chbosky, ‘Eleanor Park’ by Rainbow Rowell, ‘The Hate U Give‘ by Angie Thomas, ‘The Book Thief‘ by Markus Zusak, ‘The Catcher in the Rye‘ by J. D. Salinger, ‘Speak’ by Laurie Halse Anderson, ‘The Fault in Our Stars‘ by John Green, ‘Looking for Alaska’ by John Green, and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird‘ by Harper Lee.
The Lasting Impact of The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton published ‘The Outsiders,’ a novel she began writing at age 15 and published at age 17 in 1967. At that time, the idea of a teenager writing fiction for her peers was a rarity. Most of the literature handed down for high school students to read had, in Hinton’s estimation, nothing to do with the lived experiences of teenagers in her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In one of her interviews, she wrote that most of the authors of teenage books are behind the times in her time. The romance was the most popular theme in their fiction, with a close second being horses.
Hinton’s novel didn’t deal with romance or horses unless you count the encounter between the protagonist, the 14-year-old Greaser Ponyboy Curtis, and a Soc girl. Instead, it describes the ongoing gang warfare between the lower-class Greasers and the well-to-do Socials in intrepid detail. However, teenagers all over the country loved it. The book has sold more than 15 million copies fifty-four years later, and become a regular feature on middle school reading lists, influenced a movie of the same name by Francis Ford Coppola, and helped shape an entire market of the young adult literary genre.
The story of ‘The Outsiders’ has continued to inspire people born long after Hinton graduated from high school despite the age of the book. Solid proof is the long tail of the phrase “Stay gold, Ponyboy,” which were the dying words of Greaser Johnny Cade. The term itself is a half-remembered quote from the Robert Frost poem ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay‘. These days, “Stay Gold” is a phrase you can find emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to throw pillows. Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit used it as a title for their album while Run the Jewels has a song about it.
‘The Outsiders’ captured the ongoing fight between rival gangs, which is at the heart of the adolescent experience. The teens had the knowledge that the way things stand is wrong, but they are not clear on how to fix it, and they were also frustrated with older adults for obliviously continuing. The main distinction between both gangs is their financial strength, as the Socs have more money than the Greasers, as portrayed in the book. Apart from that, they aren’t so different; if only they could figure that out, as Ponyboy later realized in the book.
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About Ugo Juliet
Former Lecturer. Author of multiple books. Degree from University Of Nigeria, Nsukka.