S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders
There has been conversation of whether YA books have an effect on teenagers today. Most adults do not allow their children read these novel because it deals with rape, sex, murder or violence, and drugs. According to Gurdon, reading about homicide does not turn a man into a murderer; or reading about cheating on the exam won’t make the child break the honor code. The parents care more about their child’s happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Gurdon thinks that today’s YA novels discover this dark yet realistic truths of the outside world dealing with happiness and rainbows, and true love conquering all is now making their appearance in the majority of teen fiction books. Today’s YA novels concern parents and educators alike,
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and they are taking into consideration that the effect on YA Novels is changing the teens social behavior among family and friends. Parents care more about their children’s happiness instead of telling them about the realistic world out there. YA Novels are seen to have negative effects on teens, due to the fact being that most YA Novels deal with suicide, vampires, drug addiction, prostitution, but are the books trying to say that these things are good, or are they an example of Allegory, a representation of realistic truths of the world around us.
People are implementing that teens are finding relief in books in which they can better relate to as opposed to those fantasy stories in which we all dream of finding out prince charming. Most critics would say that YA Novels usually targets a self-destructive behavior which is known to be contagious and a way to put a stop to this type of behavior is to stop it at its source. They believe that YA novels is too dark and immature for teenage adolescents. During adolescents, is the time where they go through the most changes. They go through puberty, and start to finish developing the brain. Usually the prefrontal cortex is the most under developed during adolescents. The prefrontal cortex is where variety of complex behaviors, including planning occur, and greatly contributes to personality development. The idea of YA Novels usually is an indicator of what a person might go through or experience in life. Reading a story about a boy who is going through anorexia, will show a teenage boy that he is not the only person in the world experiencing this and will take the necessary steps on the road to recovery.
The Outsider by S.E. Hinton was the first YA Novel published in 1967. S.E. Hinton wrote the Outsiders at 16 years old. It became a success later in the years. Most people would think that it is bad because it deals with gang violence, murder, abuse, but is that what S.E. Hinton is trying to portray in her story? Each reader has different opinion while they read, but in a way we could see what S.E. Hinton is actually communicating something, but is just hidden until the whole story is read. The Outsiders is about a boy named Poneyboy who is the main character of the story. He has two brothers Sodapop and Darry who are part of a gang the Greasers. Poneyboy associates with the Greasers who have greasy long hair, and dress pretty sloppy. Greasers are always going up against the Socs who have the money and are better …show more content…
looking.
The violence between the Socs and the Greasers is not only dealing with gang violence but displaying a distinction between classes.
The Socs are the rich/ middle class while the Greasers are representing the less fortunate. It is important for Young Adults to know this because where they go to school, they can see who are the rich and the poor based on personality, clothing, and technology that they have. There have always been class tensions between the rich and the less fortunate. The Outsiders shows that even though they are not as rich, they stick together to survive. It is like Karl Marx on the Communist Manifesto, where we have the struggle between the bourgeoisie, the rich and the proletariat the working class. He talks about the tension between these classes and eventually thinks that the proletariat will have enough and take over/ down the bourgeoisie. A good real life example of class tension is the 2000 show Veronica Mars. It takes place in Neptune, where there is no middle class; you are either rich or poor. The show really puts emphasis on how class tensions are in a school setting. As teens enter middle or high school, they are going to have friends that they hang out with and not associate with others that are different from them. The book is not about gang violence. S.E. Hinton uses the Socs and the Greasers as an Allegory to portray the struggle of class. They are kind of like cliques; people from similar backgrounds in finances, family, etc. Even though
they are not the same economically. they are still human beings.
Another message that we can see in the outsiders is the idea of accepting who you are and not trying to be someone you are not. Poneyboy associates in the Greasers because of his two older brothers who are in the gang. While his time in the Greasers he experiences so much. He goes through ups and downs emotionally and physically. One night he is walking home alone, and is attacked physically by the Socs. It traumatized him, but he eventually moved on. Then he gets into another fight with the Socs and this time his friend Johnny kills one of them. Now with the murder in their hands, they eventually escape and try to be on their own for a while. Later in the book Poneyboy and Johnny are now living on their own until things calm down back at home. Then they become heroic and save kids from a burning building while sacrificing themselves in a dangerous situation. Poneyboy loses his friend Johnny to physical difficulties he experienced in the fire. Then Poneyboy and the gang then fight the Socs in battle and Poneyboy suffers emotionally and physically because of a concussion. People in the gang tell Poneyboy that he is not like them, and can do better with his life. Even though he suffered so much in a couple of months, he found a way to overcome it. S.E. Hinton does a good job showing this at the end of the story. She ends off with the same words at the beginning of the story. Poneyboy is writing a story for his English class, and by repeating the beginning lines, it shows that he went through so much in his life that he was able to overcome it. No matter how hard life throws at you, there is always a way that you can overcome it.
Gurdon also implies the story Rage, in which Missy a teenager struggles with self-injury. She is a victim of a sadistic sexual prank, and to deal with the pain, she cuts herself. In the novel Scars, it was known to be a good book, but it dealt with a person cutting their forearms because the victim suffered rape by her father since she was little. The cover was the only problem. Is cutting what these authors are really showing. If you look at it, they both struggled emotionally. They cut to help release the pain that they feel. Everyone is different. They all handle ways to deal with emotional abuse differently. Amada a librarian stated that “We like to have the adult perspective, but we try to target the teens because that’s who is reading it” (Gurdon pg.3). Teenagers are reading these dark stories because they can relate to it. Most parents would be against them reading it because it is so dark and contains material that is mature to them. The parents are taking the voice away from the teens. The purpose of these books is to validate the teen experience and giving them a voice to problems of a teenager that would otherwise be voiceless like cutting, or sex/rape (Gurdon pg.2). It shows that with troubles comes triumph. If a teen were struggling with abuse of any kind, and he or she had to read a book about a teen going through the exact situation, then they would find comfort and relief in knowing that he or she were not alone.
As Teenagers they start to figure out who they are and what they are in society. Teenagers go through so much in those 6+ years, and having something that they can relate to is beneficial for them. The YA genre is so unique, that it uses these dark subject matters to help give teens a source to relate to. According to Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, he talks about the idea of the sublime and what creates it. We have to look at ourselves as the sublime. Burke talks about how terrible objects in which they are in a manner analogous to terror, is the source of the sublime. It is a productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. Pain is so much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure (Burke). Burke states that the torments in which we may suffer, have a much greater effect on the body and the mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest or than the liveliest imagination and the most sound and exquisitely sensible, could enjoy.
In other words, pain is more powerful than pleasure. Parents do not like to have their children to read YA literature because it is so dark and deals with inappropriate material that is not necessary for teens to be exposed to. They talk about sex, drugs, murder and rape, which is common in the teenage years. When they go to school, some of these topics are said by their peers, and parents would get upset because schools are talking about these certain aspects of life. Why are YA Novels so dark? They use these terrible objects to use pain over pleasure. Most parents care about their children’s happiness than anything else. They fail to realize that life is not always so happy. There are many obstacles that come in our way, and if we worry so much on trying to make our teens happy while growing up, then they would be unhappy for the rest of their lives, and would not know what to do in life.
Contemporary fiction books today are seen to be dark any mysterious in the stories they tell. Because of this, many people are taking this into deep consideration as they judge how beneficial this are for teens. The parents fear what their teenagers are reading because they do not want them to get caught up and act out. Teens are discovering pain over pleasure. They have a sense that life is not as easy and need that source to relate to when they are in need of help. They become astonished of the books is the state of the soul in which all of its emotions are suspended, with some degree of horror (Burke). That fear comes from a deeper place. Not everything in life is happy. There are things that happen out of nowhere. Life is a tough cycle. It is not full of happiness and rainbows, it is tough and most of the pain that we suffer is to not deterriate us, but to accept the fact that it is life, and that life is a hard battleground.
There are victories, but we can’t learn to gain victory without losing. “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary” (Burke). Parents and Critics fear of the unknown. They do not know if YA literature is bad for youths. All they think about is the violence, sex, drugs, murder that Is bad for their youths to be reading. When they actually read the story they can see that it is not all about the terrible things. The author uses common things in life and uses the darkness material to represent something related to real life situations. In nature, dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form grander passion, than those have which are more clear and determinate (Burke). That darkness is what teenagers like. The use of these terrible objects has a powerful effect on them so that they can emotional connect to the text. A perpendicular has more force in forming the subline than an inclined plane; and the effect of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger than when it is smooth and polished (Burke). An incline you can see what is in front of you. A perpendicular has a shadow. YA authors are not going to just make it nice and simple. They use the dark material to make it not clear as to what they are really talking about. Allegory is the key. They hide the actual meaning of the story. People think that with these horrendous, traumatizing stories comes secret triumphs in which teens find comfort in. And with that, teens are learning to put down the knife, and pick up a book which is helping them on their road to recovery; one distraught story at a time. We need to stop worrying about the violence, sex, murder and start focusing on what the story actually means. Life is like the rugged and broken surface. You have no clue what is going to happen but in the end you learn how to overcome these things. If we take away YA literature from young adults, then we are not preparing them for life ahead of them, and giving them no voice at all. They would rather have a voice and know how to overcome obstacles that life throws at them.
We also have to see how many teens actually read YA Novels. According to Gurdon, only three of the visiting 18 juniors said that they read YA literature. So who is really reading these stories? We noticed that a lot of YA literature that is being read is from older adults. The older generation are reading these books because in some cases they want to remind themselves of their childhood/teenage years. It gives them a comforting presence for those who just refuse to grow up and embrace that their lives are boring and not fun at all. If adults can read YA novels, why can’t teens? We have to realize that adults and teens are human beings, and should be allowed to read books that interests them. At least they are reading books instead of getting things to read on the internet like facebook. Twitter, tumblr etc. It is best to read books that are a representation of real life, then the internet which changes a person.
and they are taking into consideration that the effect on YA Novels is changing the teens social behavior among family and friends. Parents care more about their children’s happiness instead of telling them about the realistic world out there. YA Novels are seen to have negative effects on teens, due to the fact being that most YA Novels deal with suicide, vampires, drug addiction, prostitution, but are the books trying to say that these things are good, or are they an example of Allegory, a representation of realistic truths of the world around us.
People are implementing that teens are finding relief in books in which they can better relate to as opposed to those fantasy stories in which we all dream of finding out prince charming. Most critics would say that YA Novels usually targets a self-destructive behavior which is known to be contagious and a way to put a stop to this type of behavior is to stop it at its source. They believe that YA novels is too dark and immature for teenage adolescents. During adolescents, is the time where they go through the most changes. They go through puberty, and start to finish developing the brain. Usually the prefrontal cortex is the most under developed during adolescents. The prefrontal cortex is where variety of complex behaviors, including planning occur, and greatly contributes to personality development. The idea of YA Novels usually is an indicator of what a person might go through or experience in life. Reading a story about a boy who is going through anorexia, will show a teenage boy that he is not the only person in the world experiencing this and will take the necessary steps on the road to recovery.
The Outsider by S.E. Hinton was the first YA Novel published in 1967. S.E. Hinton wrote the Outsiders at 16 years old. It became a success later in the years. Most people would think that it is bad because it deals with gang violence, murder, abuse, but is that what S.E. Hinton is trying to portray in her story? Each reader has different opinion while they read, but in a way we could see what S.E. Hinton is actually communicating something, but is just hidden until the whole story is read. The Outsiders is about a boy named Poneyboy who is the main character of the story. He has two brothers Sodapop and Darry who are part of a gang the Greasers. Poneyboy associates with the Greasers who have greasy long hair, and dress pretty sloppy. Greasers are always going up against the Socs who have the money and are better …show more content…
looking.
The violence between the Socs and the Greasers is not only dealing with gang violence but displaying a distinction between classes.
The Socs are the rich/ middle class while the Greasers are representing the less fortunate. It is important for Young Adults to know this because where they go to school, they can see who are the rich and the poor based on personality, clothing, and technology that they have. There have always been class tensions between the rich and the less fortunate. The Outsiders shows that even though they are not as rich, they stick together to survive. It is like Karl Marx on the Communist Manifesto, where we have the struggle between the bourgeoisie, the rich and the proletariat the working class. He talks about the tension between these classes and eventually thinks that the proletariat will have enough and take over/ down the bourgeoisie. A good real life example of class tension is the 2000 show Veronica Mars. It takes place in Neptune, where there is no middle class; you are either rich or poor. The show really puts emphasis on how class tensions are in a school setting. As teens enter middle or high school, they are going to have friends that they hang out with and not associate with others that are different from them. The book is not about gang violence. S.E. Hinton uses the Socs and the Greasers as an Allegory to portray the struggle of class. They are kind of like cliques; people from similar backgrounds in finances, family, etc. Even though
they are not the same economically. they are still human beings.
Another message that we can see in the outsiders is the idea of accepting who you are and not trying to be someone you are not. Poneyboy associates in the Greasers because of his two older brothers who are in the gang. While his time in the Greasers he experiences so much. He goes through ups and downs emotionally and physically. One night he is walking home alone, and is attacked physically by the Socs. It traumatized him, but he eventually moved on. Then he gets into another fight with the Socs and this time his friend Johnny kills one of them. Now with the murder in their hands, they eventually escape and try to be on their own for a while. Later in the book Poneyboy and Johnny are now living on their own until things calm down back at home. Then they become heroic and save kids from a burning building while sacrificing themselves in a dangerous situation. Poneyboy loses his friend Johnny to physical difficulties he experienced in the fire. Then Poneyboy and the gang then fight the Socs in battle and Poneyboy suffers emotionally and physically because of a concussion. People in the gang tell Poneyboy that he is not like them, and can do better with his life. Even though he suffered so much in a couple of months, he found a way to overcome it. S.E. Hinton does a good job showing this at the end of the story. She ends off with the same words at the beginning of the story. Poneyboy is writing a story for his English class, and by repeating the beginning lines, it shows that he went through so much in his life that he was able to overcome it. No matter how hard life throws at you, there is always a way that you can overcome it.
Gurdon also implies the story Rage, in which Missy a teenager struggles with self-injury. She is a victim of a sadistic sexual prank, and to deal with the pain, she cuts herself. In the novel Scars, it was known to be a good book, but it dealt with a person cutting their forearms because the victim suffered rape by her father since she was little. The cover was the only problem. Is cutting what these authors are really showing. If you look at it, they both struggled emotionally. They cut to help release the pain that they feel. Everyone is different. They all handle ways to deal with emotional abuse differently. Amada a librarian stated that “We like to have the adult perspective, but we try to target the teens because that’s who is reading it” (Gurdon pg.3). Teenagers are reading these dark stories because they can relate to it. Most parents would be against them reading it because it is so dark and contains material that is mature to them. The parents are taking the voice away from the teens. The purpose of these books is to validate the teen experience and giving them a voice to problems of a teenager that would otherwise be voiceless like cutting, or sex/rape (Gurdon pg.2). It shows that with troubles comes triumph. If a teen were struggling with abuse of any kind, and he or she had to read a book about a teen going through the exact situation, then they would find comfort and relief in knowing that he or she were not alone.
As Teenagers they start to figure out who they are and what they are in society. Teenagers go through so much in those 6+ years, and having something that they can relate to is beneficial for them. The YA genre is so unique, that it uses these dark subject matters to help give teens a source to relate to. According to Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, he talks about the idea of the sublime and what creates it. We have to look at ourselves as the sublime. Burke talks about how terrible objects in which they are in a manner analogous to terror, is the source of the sublime. It is a productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. Pain is so much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure (Burke). Burke states that the torments in which we may suffer, have a much greater effect on the body and the mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest or than the liveliest imagination and the most sound and exquisitely sensible, could enjoy.
In other words, pain is more powerful than pleasure. Parents do not like to have their children to read YA literature because it is so dark and deals with inappropriate material that is not necessary for teens to be exposed to. They talk about sex, drugs, murder and rape, which is common in the teenage years. When they go to school, some of these topics are said by their peers, and parents would get upset because schools are talking about these certain aspects of life. Why are YA Novels so dark? They use these terrible objects to use pain over pleasure. Most parents care about their children’s happiness than anything else. They fail to realize that life is not always so happy. There are many obstacles that come in our way, and if we worry so much on trying to make our teens happy while growing up, then they would be unhappy for the rest of their lives, and would not know what to do in life.
Contemporary fiction books today are seen to be dark any mysterious in the stories they tell. Because of this, many people are taking this into deep consideration as they judge how beneficial this are for teens. The parents fear what their teenagers are reading because they do not want them to get caught up and act out. Teens are discovering pain over pleasure. They have a sense that life is not as easy and need that source to relate to when they are in need of help. They become astonished of the books is the state of the soul in which all of its emotions are suspended, with some degree of horror (Burke). That fear comes from a deeper place. Not everything in life is happy. There are things that happen out of nowhere. Life is a tough cycle. It is not full of happiness and rainbows, it is tough and most of the pain that we suffer is to not deterriate us, but to accept the fact that it is life, and that life is a hard battleground.
There are victories, but we can’t learn to gain victory without losing. “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary” (Burke). Parents and Critics fear of the unknown. They do not know if YA literature is bad for youths. All they think about is the violence, sex, drugs, murder that Is bad for their youths to be reading. When they actually read the story they can see that it is not all about the terrible things. The author uses common things in life and uses the darkness material to represent something related to real life situations. In nature, dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form grander passion, than those have which are more clear and determinate (Burke). That darkness is what teenagers like. The use of these terrible objects has a powerful effect on them so that they can emotional connect to the text. A perpendicular has more force in forming the subline than an inclined plane; and the effect of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger than when it is smooth and polished (Burke). An incline you can see what is in front of you. A perpendicular has a shadow. YA authors are not going to just make it nice and simple. They use the dark material to make it not clear as to what they are really talking about. Allegory is the key. They hide the actual meaning of the story. People think that with these horrendous, traumatizing stories comes secret triumphs in which teens find comfort in. And with that, teens are learning to put down the knife, and pick up a book which is helping them on their road to recovery; one distraught story at a time. We need to stop worrying about the violence, sex, murder and start focusing on what the story actually means. Life is like the rugged and broken surface. You have no clue what is going to happen but in the end you learn how to overcome these things. If we take away YA literature from young adults, then we are not preparing them for life ahead of them, and giving them no voice at all. They would rather have a voice and know how to overcome obstacles that life throws at them.
We also have to see how many teens actually read YA Novels. According to Gurdon, only three of the visiting 18 juniors said that they read YA literature. So who is really reading these stories? We noticed that a lot of YA literature that is being read is from older adults. The older generation are reading these books because in some cases they want to remind themselves of their childhood/teenage years. It gives them a comforting presence for those who just refuse to grow up and embrace that their lives are boring and not fun at all. If adults can read YA novels, why can’t teens? We have to realize that adults and teens are human beings, and should be allowed to read books that interests them. At least they are reading books instead of getting things to read on the internet like facebook. Twitter, tumblr etc. It is best to read books that are a representation of real life, then the internet which changes a person.