LIT/A/3: The Outsider by Susan Eloise Hinton

Plot Summary

Ponyboy Curtis and his brothers, Sodapop and Darry, belong to a group of poor teenage boys called greasers. Many of them have led hard lives already, and they are tough, angry and unforgiving. They often fight with the Socs, the group of wealthy, privileged boys who beat them up for fun. Ponyboy is shy and quiet. He gets good grades and likes to draw and read. His oldest brother Darry takes care of the family, since their parents died in a car crash. He is very serious, works most of the time, and is very hard on Ponyboy. He often yells at him to do better in school. Soda, the middle brother, is happy most of the time, and is very handsome and likable. The family often gets into fights over Ponyboy’s future.

There are a few other members of their gang, including Dally and Johnny. Dally is one of the oldest, and certainly the toughest. He seems to enjoy being a criminal. He thinks the law is a joke. Johnny is even shyer than Pony. His parents abuse him, so he always seems scared. He is the pet of the group. Recently, Johnny was beat up very badly by a Soc wearing heavy rings. One night, Dally, Johnny and Pony meet two beautiful Soc girls, Cherry and Marcia. Cherry is smart and dreamy like Ponyboy, and they have a good conversation. On the way home, the girls’ boyfriends catch them all together. It turns out that Cherry’s boyfriend is Bob, the same boy who beat Johnny up. Later that night, Ponyboy comes in late and gets into such a fight with Darry that he runs to the park with Johnny just to get away from the house. Bob and his friends find Pony and Johnny there, and nearly drown Pony in a fountain. Terrified and angry, Johnny stabs Bob to death. The two boys run to find Dally, knowing he will know what to do. He gives them money and tells them to hide in a church a short distance out of town. They stay there for a few days, reading to each other and talking about poetry and sunsets. (Johnny is thoughtful like Pony, and they get along very well.) When Dallas comes to find them, they tell him they want to turn themselves in. Before they can, however, the church catches fire and several small children are trapped inside.

Without thinking, the boys rescue them, and a large piece of burning wood falls on Johnny and breaks his back. Pony spends a short time in the hospital, then gets to go home. That evening there is a big fight between the greasers and the Socs, which the greasers win. One of Bob’s friends does not fight, because he is sick of all the hate and anger around him. Cherry, meanwhile, has become a spy for the greasers, which pleases Ponyboy but also angers him: he doesn’t want charity. After the rumble, Dally and Ponyboy go to see Johnny, who dies, telling Pony never to lose his spirit. Dally is overwhelmed, and runs out of the hospital. Soon after, back at home, Darry and the others get a phone call from Dally. He has robbed a liquor store. The boys run out to find him and hide him, but the police are chasing him. He pulls out a gun. Ponyboy knows it isn’t loaded, but he knows that Dally knows the police think it is. The police shoot Dally, and Pony knows Dally wanted to die. Pony faints and stays sick for nearly a week. Ponyboy is so upset by Johnny’s death that for weeks he pretends to himself (and everyone else) that he himself killed Bob, and that Johnny is still alive. After the trial, however, when the judge decides that Ponyboy did nothing wrong, Pony begins to admit to himself that Dally and Johnny are both dead. He decides to write about himself for a class assignment, so he can let other people know what life for a greaser is like. He is sure that there are many boys across the country just like him. He also recognizes, finally, that Darry loves him. He sees that Darry was just being overprotective when he yelled at him. He feels that, for the first time, he and his two brothers form a family.

THEMES

Bridging Social Class Gap

The Outsiders tells the story of two groups of teenagers whose bitter rivalry stems from socioeconomic differences. However, Hinton suggests, these differences in social class do not necessarily make natural enemies of the two groups. The greasers and Socs share some things in common. Cherry Valance, a Soc, and Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser, discuss their shared love of literature, popular music, and sunsets, transcending—if only temporarily—the divisions that feed the feud between their respective groups. Their harmonious conversation suggests that shared passions can fill in the gap between rich and poor. This potential for agreement marks a bright spot in the novel’s gloomy prognosis that the battle between the classes is a long-lasting one. Over the course of the novel, Ponyboy begins to see the pattern of shared experience. He realizes that the hardships that greasers and Socs face may take different practical forms, but that the members of both groups—and youths everywhere—must inevitably come to terms with fear, love, and sorrow.

Honor Among the Lawless

The idea of honorable action appears throughout the novel, and it works as an important component of the greaser behavioral code. Greasers see it as their duty, Ponyboy says, to stand up for each other in the face of enemies and authorities. In particular, we see acts of honorable duty from Dally Winston, a character who is primarily defined by his delinquency and lack of refinement. Ponyboy informs us that once, in a show of group solidarity, Dally let himself be arrested for a crime that Two-Bit had committed. Furthermore, when discussing Gone with the Wind, Johnny says that he views Dally as a Southern gentleman, as a man with a fixed personal code of behavior. Statements like Johnny’s, coupled with acts of honorable sacrifice throughout the narrative, demonstrate that courtesy and propriety can exist even among the most lawless of social groups.

The Treacherousness of Male-Female Interactions

As hostile and dangerous as the greaser-Soc rivalry becomes, the boys from each group have the comfort of knowing how their male friends will react to their male enemies. When Randy and Bob approach Ponyboy and Johnny, everyone involved knows to expect a fight of some sort. It is only when the female members of the Soc contingent start to act friendly toward the greasers that animosities blur and true trouble starts brewing. Even on the greaser side, Sodapop discovers female unreliability when he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant with another man’s child. With these plot elements, Hinton conveys the idea that cross-gender interaction creates unpredictable results. This message underscores the importance of male bonding in the novel to the creation of unity and structure.

Techniques

Symbolism

Alliteration is the repetition of similar sounds. When the Socs jump Ponyboy as he is walking home from the movies, Hinton writes, ‘They walked around slowly, silently, smiling.’ The three words that begin with the letter ‘s’ are an example of alliteration. Ponyboy, the narrator, uses alliteration to draw attention to the way they unexpectedly sneaked up on him and surrounded him before he knew they were there.

Allusion is when an author alludes to, or vaguely mentions, something, and then leaves it up to the reader to interpret it. Johnny’s last words, ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold. . .’ are an example of allusion. Johnny and Ponyboy talked about Robert Frost’s poem ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ while hiding out in the church in Windrixville. Johnny saw that the innocence of childhood provides hope. He sees a great deal of hope for the future in Ponyboy, but understands that the negativity that surrounds them has the ability to make him jaded. Johnny knows that it is too late for him, but he wants Ponyboy to fight against being consumed by violence and hate and find a way out.

Foreshadowing is dropping hints to the reader that something is about to happen. Ponyboy leaves a few hints that the church is going to burn when he narrates, ‘If that old church ever caught fire there’d be no stopping it.’ And, it does, indeed, burn to the ground. Did you feel the anticipation and suspense in this hint?

CHARACTER