by Marijane Suttor

Created on: November 04, 2011   Last Updated: November 09, 2011

The Outsiders by SE Hinton is a young adult novel written in the 1960s which centers around to groups from two different levels of society.  The vitriol of the two classes toward each other leads to the ultimate end for three of the characters, while the survivors are left to find meaning to the violence and attempt to move on with their lives with less hatred.

The narrator of the novel, Ponyboy Curtis, begins the novel by stepping out of the movie house after watching a Paul Newman movie alone.  He knows this is risky, but sometimes he just doesn’t use his head.  Ponyboy is a good student who earns good grades, but he doesn’t always use common sense. As a result, Ponyboy is walking home alone when he is jumped by a group of Socs. Socs stands for Socials, the upperside rich kids.  While Pony is being beat up, it comes to the attention of the other members of his group, the Greasers, and they rush to his aid and chase off the Socs. 

Other members of the Greasers, who are close to Ponyboy, include his two brothers Sodapop and Darrell, often referred to as Soda and Darry. A few months earlier the Curtis boys’ parents were killed in a car accident and since then 20-year-old Darry had taken over as the parent role for the other two Curtis boys and keeping the two younger brothers from being sent to a boys home.  Sodapop, 16, dropped out of school and works at a gas station and Darry works two jobs just to pay the bills for the three boys. At 14 Ponyboy is often caught in the struggle of being treated like the kid brother and being able to accept his brother Darry as the authority figure in the household.

Other Greasers, who are significant to Ponyboy, include his good friend Johnny Cade who is 16 and comes from an abusive home, Two-bit, whose real name is Keith, and Dallas Winston, who is more of s street smart thug than the rest of the boys. A minor character is Steve, who is Sodapop’s best friend.

The inciting force in the novel occurs when Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dallas decide to go to the Nightly Double, a drive-in movie theater.  While at the movie, the boys sit near two Soc girls Cherry and Marcia. They had left their drunken boyfriends and had decided to sit in the bleachers and not in the boyfriend’s cars. Dallas starts to talk dirty and make Cherry and Marcia uncomfortable. Johnny sticks up for the two girls and asks Dallas to leave them alone. No one stands up to Dallas, so it takes a lot of

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