Grief of the Outsiders

Grief of The Outsiders

There are many ways of expressing the emotion grief. The characters in The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, had many bad things happen to them and the ones they loved. Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, Bob, Johnny, and Dally are all characters that die in the book. The characters deal with grief in different ways; Ponyboy denies the fact that Johnny died, Dally was in depression, and Darry accepted their death.
Ponyboy grieves for Johnny by denying the fact that he killed Bob, and died. Randy came to visit Ponyboy at his house, and talked to him about Johnny killing Bob. Ponyboy tells Randy that Johnny’s still alive, and that he killed Bob. Ponyboy said, “‘I killed him…Johnny is not dead.’ My voice was shaking. ‘Johnny is not dead.’” (Hinton, 165) Ponyboy is so overwhelmed by all the deaths going on in his life that he tries to convince himself, and others, that Johnny didn’t die. After that Darry told Randy to leave because he was reminding Ponyboy about Johnny, which was hard for Ponyboy because he missed him. Ponyboy is in a heavy state of denial at this point. This is just one way that Ponyboy grieved for the death of his friend, Johnny.
The characters deal with grief in different ways; Ponyboy denies the fact that Johnny died, Dally was in depression, and Darry accepted their death. S.E. Hinton is telling us that grief is a part of life, and we all deal with it in different ways. There are many different ways of dealing with grief, so how do you deal with it?