S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders

Believe it or not, everyone is an outsider; moreover so are you. “The Outsiders”, a novel written by S.E Hinton, took place in the 1960’s Tulsa, Oklahoma. When Hinton was 17 years old, out of anger she wrote this book about the differences between two unique teenage social groups: the greasers and the Soc (Doc A). She illustrates that the outsiders are the people who stand out from the rest of society by thought or action. Both the greasers and the Soc can be considered outsiders, but as the story goes on, we realize the real outsiders are the ones who can see each individual in the groups for who they really are. The greasers are definitely considered outsiders because they are “dumb and poor”. People always “looked down on them” because of the rumors they heard; like when the Soc girl says “They are right. You are a hood.” to Ponyboy. She stereotypes him by the name society gave to him. Ponyboy can seem like an outsider to the
Johnny is an outsider to the greasers because Ponyboy recites a poem and he is able to comprehend it. If the rest of the gang heard the poem, they would not understand it. This is why Ponyboy says “You aren’t like the rest of the gang. They just don’t dig.”(Doc D). Randy is an outsider too because he doesn’t want to fight. He says “it doesn’t do any good.”(Doc E) Randy can see things for how they really are, and in the end he calls Ponyboy “kid” instead of “greaser”. This is when Ponyboy realizes that Randy is “just a guy.” In the end when Johnny tells Ponyboy to “stay gold”, he means for Ponyboy to always stay true to himself (Doc F). If that’s the case, then an outsider is someone authentic. Outsiders are the people who don’t get caught up in social groups. People who don’t need to fake to be liked. People who just do their own thing and be themselves no matter what. An outsider’s qualities are admirable, so do you consider yourself an authentic