The Outsiders

Has anyone ever felt like you were judged by the way you look and dress? The outsiders by S.E Hinton should be taught in school. This book should be taught in school because it is very much like real life today so it could teach kids what not to do. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is a story about a boy named Ponyboy and his friends who are constantly getting in trouble and being judged for being “greasers”. Ponyboy is an interesting character because he is different from his friends, but gets caught up in gang conflicts. There are many examples in The Outsiders showing Ponyboy to be loyal, brave and sensitive. The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton was written in 1967. This novel tells the story of the conflict between two different social groups, the greasers and the socs. The socs were the socials who lived in the rich part of town, and the greasers were the lower class youths. They call them Greasers because they wear their hair long and a lot of grease in it. They are always getting picked up by the police for shoplifting, hijacking cars, pity theft, armed robbery and even MURDER!! They are always getting in trouble for something the Socs did like when Pony boy was at school. The Socs were doing something in the cafeteria and Pony boy got in trouble for doing it and he wasn’t even in the cafeteria. The Socs are a bunch of rich kids that have mustangs and corvettes with nice interior. This novel tackles issues such as violence, class conflict, and prejudice. The novel takes place in the early sixties. The Outsiders examines how two different groups compete, and unite for survival, which is often justified with violence. This one isn’t getting lost in the woods and having to make fire and kill fish and get water out of some spring. This is more like real life because things like this happen every day. Books have been challenged and banned for years. Censorship is the one factor that negates our true freedom of speech and expression that is part of our constitutional rights. The first amendment states that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The first amendment has never been followed correctly due to censorship, challenging, and the banning of books. The most common reasons for banning The Outsiders is the profanity and teenage violence in the book. Parents generally worry that their children are being exposed to things they aren't prepared for and insist their schools pull it from the curriculum. Alternatively, some say it promotes unchristian values, though most people that make such a claim haven't read the book themselves. The Nazi governments in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, and the governments of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, have shown the world what happens when large, powerful nations choose to deprive their own citizens of knowledge and a voice. In the United States, Americans pride themselves on freedom of speech and freedom of the press—but many of them have experienced censorship. Boards of education frequently try to ban certain books from their school districts; television and radio stations ban certain programming; and newspapers may alter certain stories. Books are banned when they depict violence or sexually suggestive material. Motion pictures are rated to protect young people from sex and violence on the screen. Internet resources are filtered to ensure that students will be unable to log into pornographic web sites. Ponyboy can be described as being loyal. For example, Ponyboy considers Johnny, Dallas, Two-bit and Steve to being like family and when it was time for the Socs and the Greasers to fight during the rumble, Ponyboy refused to stay home even though he doesn’t really like to fight. On page 133 it says, “Right then the most important thing in my life was helping s whip the Socs.” This shows that Ponyboy will help defend his gang even when it means doing things he doesn’t want to do. Another example is when the gang, including Ponyboy, tried to help Dally when he robbed the grocery story. On page 153 it says, “’It was Dally. He phoned from a booth. He’s just robbed a grocery store and cops are after him.’…We all left in at a dead run…” Therefore, Ponyboy was loyal to Dally even when he committed a serious crime. From both these examples it is clear that Ponyboy is loyal to everyone in his gang.