Research Paper On The Outsiders By S.E. Hinton
There is so much realism in The Outsiders that is why this book is so appealing to the younger generation. Kids like to read novels that they can relate to. Books that contain stories that could happen to them. Books they find appealing. Most of Hints stories are derived from real life experiences. This book speaks well to young readers because of its idealism, honesty, and sincerity. Hints took all her child life experiences and put them into writing. Her works were so appealing that “The Outsiders can be thought to be the best-selling young adult novel of all time, it has the appeal to teens and their mere.
It adapted into both a prime-time television series and a movie” (Howard 8-9). Hints has her own style, “Hints introduces the young people who live in the bad parts of town and their behavior reflects their sense of dignity and self-worth” (Howard 62). Mostly she liked to write about boys, she wrote about gangs. To boys this was exciting because most has never been around any gangs. “This story is exciting and those difficult-to-serve kids at the culturally detached bottom of society can respond to this book, decency of the Urban Slum characters, who are nearly but not yet hopeless” (Howard 62).
Howard explains this way, ” Pony’s hair was greased and long, today it might be shaved or dyed. There are still 14-yr-old ‘greasers’ who do well in school and know about Robert Frost and Jack London. And yes, young adults like Dallas, who see no future for them selves, die in bursts of gunfire on our streets” (Howard 51 A lot of young kids have the need to be smart and be like everyone else, “Im suppose to be smart; I make good grades and have a high IQ and everything, but I don’t use my head. I lie to myself all the time. But never believe me. ” (Hints 7).
So many kids appreciated Hints they rote letters to prove it, “Hints had received many letters expressing gratitude for writing a book about the way things real were” ( Sutherland 76 ). Although there were a lot of people that enjoyed Hints works there were still some who disliked her works. A lot of people have criticized the book as being unbelievable and unconvincing. Daly believes that Hints believed she was writing from realism but really that is not what realism was like in those days. ” The irony is that, while the debate team focused on the gangs and the violence, the smoking, and the beer-drinking-all dreaded evidence of the New
Realism-the major thrust of ‘The Outsiders’ had nothing to do with realism at all” (Daly 16). Not only does Daly think this way but, McCormick does not find the characters realistic. ” Hints gives her characters enough flexibility to keep them from being complete stereo-types, but they are never wholly believable as real people” ( Howard 49). Sometimes people have different wises on what is real? What is believable? Townsend suggests that “true feeling is hopelessly entangled with false, bad-film sentimentality and the plot is creakingly unbelievable (Howard 54).
Of all them letters that Hints achieved of gratitude there were still some that weren’t gratitude at all. One of the letters accused Hints of just making a sensation or that teen-eager wont believe a word of it, most suggested it couldn’t have been written by a teen-eager. ( Sutherland 76 There were many conflicts between the greasers. They had some insecurity in walking alone because of there bad neighborhood and the Coco’s. “Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped, or someone will come by and scream, ‘Greaser! ‘ at them… ” (Hints 6). Words have different meanings in neighborhoods.
Two compliments in their neighborhoods are tough and tuff. Tough meaning the same as rough and tuff meaning cool or sharp. In kids today they get labeled because of the way they dress or the music they listen to. There are the skaters, the nerds, the ghetto people, the preppy, etc. ” Our hair labeled us greasers, too-it was our trademark. The only thing we were proud of’ (64). Some groups are considered worse than the others, some have other problems then the Others. ” You SUre you want to go back? IIS greasers get it worse than anyone else” (78). In The Outsiders Greasers had this tough appeal.
They were boys, but needed to be more manly. “… L wanted to cry, but erasers don’t cry in front of strangers, some of us never cry at all… ” (91). There were conflicts between the Soc that conflicted with the greasers. They were two opposite groups that didn’t get along. The Soc, “the jet-set… West- side rich kids, wear madras shirts, smell of English leather, and drive new sports cars… ” (6). Soc were rich, while greasers were low class. “Soc” is an abbreviation of the Socials, which are the West-side rich kids. Soc had a better reputation than the greasers.
Besides the conflicts between the greasers and the conflicts between the Soc there were also conflicts between the two gangs. Because the two groups were so different they clashed. The gangs are like families they have a blood brother bond. They have male camaraderie (Malone 83). Besides some of the differences there were some things they had in common. “Both (gangs) lots suffer from parental absence or neglect and seek to realize themselves in feats of strength which lead to disaster and death (On the Hook 76 ). For example Pony;s parents are dead and Johnny’s parents abuse him.
The greasers hope for just some peace. They want to feel equal. ” You can’t kill yourself, Johnny,” said Pony. ” Well I won’t. But I got to do meeting. It seems like there’s got to be someplace without greasers or Soc, with just people” (Hints 44). Its like they are always fighting and its over such dumb things. It seems they do it just to do it. “Rat race is a perfect name for it, we’re always going and going and going and never asking where. Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn’t want anything else and it seems like we’re always searching for something else to want? (Hints 36). Sacs hated how the greasers lived, just who they were. “Need a haircut, greaser? ” The medium-sized blond pulled a knife out of his pocket ND flipped the blade open (8). The two groups were always getting into some kind of fight. Some times it was really violent. Johnny got jumped and was so scared after that, he carried a switchblade and would kill the next person that jumped him. Greasers are always getting jumped by Soc, and Soc getting jumped my greasers… Its an ongoing pattern. Then there were them inside conflicts in The Outsiders.
The conflicts make the plot go up and sown but also can result in a turning point. The Plot of the outsiders turns because of the conflict with Diary. The story progresses and oh can actually see the boys maturing and growing with there experiences. As the story goes on, Pony’s voice starts to change and grow in self- awareness. After becoming friends with two Soc, He questions whether things have to be the way they are” (Roberts). The reason most Soc don talk to greasers is because they are afraid of the embarrassment that goes along with it. “Pony… L mean. .. F I (Cherry) see you in the hall at school or someplace and don’t say hi, well, its not personal or anything, but… ” (Hints 42). Pony begins to fall for Cherry (a Soc). Greasers feel a little disadvantaged. Listen I don’t mind dying now. Its worth it. Its worth saving those kids. There lives are worth more than mine, they have more to live for” (Hints 154). Pony and Johnny saved kids from a burning church. It was so surprising to everyone how a bunch of greasers could make a difference. “l stared at the newspaper on the front page of the second section was the headline: Juvenile Delinquents Turn Hero’s. (Hints 95). It shows how brave the kids really were. ” I swear you three are the bravest kids I’ve ever seen in a long time.. ” (Hints 84). Dally is afraid of the consequences of jail. Dally doesn’t want the soy to go back and end up in jail because you get hardened in jail. Dally doesn’t want that to happen to them like it happened to him. There are three deferent themes in The Outsiders. The 1 SST theme, The Communion of sunsets which prompted Hints to write the book. She talks about class separation, sunsets, reminds us that class restrictions are day-to- day fences (Daly-29-30).
This showed the flipped of class warfare. The kids were always watching sunsets. Society of orphans which was the second theme. Hints always uses orphans in her books. (Daly 30-31). There are 3 groups: true, working, and uncertain (Daly 30-31 ). N the third theme Staying Gold it refers to the Robert Frost poem, and the only reason Pony remembered it is because he never got what Frost meant by it (Daly 33-34). The boys have some sort of obsession with this poem. A quote from Johnny left in a Gone With the Wind book, ” He meant you’re gold when you’re a kid … Like the way you dig sun-sets Pony.
That’s gold. Keep that way, it’s a good way to be” (Howard 37-38). Hints uses this poem as sort of a type of symbolism. Hints uses symbolism for the structures of her characters. ( Howard 65). The themes are considered to be “adult themes” to some people. There was the debate about censorship on Hint’s books because they saw the books as violent and having “adult” themes and was not a novel teens should read ( Howard 28). The themes of Hints novels have modern, colloquial tone, but they are like fairy tale adventures (Malone 81 The themes are another reason for the appeal it has to people.
Hints likes to write stories about her own experiences, that’s just her style. She writes from her own experiences. ” She had written the book because one Of her friends in Tulsa had been jumped and beaten up as had pony, the protagonist of the Outsiders Sutherland 75 ). She writes stories about things she’d want to read about, her own personal interests. ‘I lid wanted to read books that showed teenagers outside the life of Mary Jane went to Prom. ‘ When I couldn’t find any, I decided to write one myself.
I created a world with no adult figured, where kids lived by their own rules. ” (“S. E. Hints 77). Hints was a little confused as a child about what girls were talking about. She was more of a tomboy. ” When I was a teenager I didn’t understand what girls were talking about,” Hints explains, ” They were always waiting for something to happen, they to to stand in the john, rat their hair, and outline their eyes in black” ( Lyons 80 Hints considers her childhood years her most interesting time and that is why most her her works involve children and their lives.
Hints writes about kids because that is an interesting part of life, feelings are more dramatic and they have more feelings than any other part of society, but are more afraid to show feelings (Lyons 80 Another part of Hint’s style includes how Hints never makes reference to the place of location, they are in. Its always, the neighborhood,” “The city,” ” The country. Ten’s also like how they are reading something that was actually written by someone the same age as them. Because Hints began composing ‘ The Outsiders’ while still a teenager students find reading about her a natural extension of reading the novel itself. This heightens their awareness of her books as a product of artistic aims and choices… ” (Vendettas 89). Hints style also was different because of her characters. Hints says it was more comfortable to use a male character because she wrote it before the Women’s Movement. Plus people at that time would ‘t have believed that arils would do the things she wrote about. “…
Hints boys are usually impoverished, are often thugs and thieves, are variously abandoned by parents, brutalized by policemen, jailed, stabbed to death, shot to death, burned to death and so routinely beaten nearly to death that they think it’s a drag to have to rush to the hospital for something as trivial as a fractured skull” ( Malone 81 ). Mostly this book as an adventure appeal that a lot of people like. She wrote about boys of all different situations. ” One of Susan Hint’s achievements in The Outsiders’ is to hold up for scrutiny young people from economically, culturally, and socially deprived circumstances” (Howard 50).
The boys in her stories usually went through some rough situations that helped them grow. The narrator-hero of each is a tough-tender 14-16-yr-old loner making his perilous way through violent, caste-ridden world almost depopulated of grown-ups” ( Lyons 78). Some boys may question who they are but Pony didn’t. Hints shows that Pony doesn’t question the aimless, sometimes- violent life on his gang (Roberts). Another part of Hints style was that she wrote in first person. When authors write in first person they choose words their characters would actually use.
