The Outsiders | Ponyboy's Coming-Of-Age
In the following essay, the author examines The Outsiders as a coming-of-age novel, focusing on Ponyboy's choices between growing up too soon and never growing up.
David Ansen has called The Outsiders "the prototypical young adult novel." Written when S. E. Hinton was sixteen, it is widely credited with ushering in a new era of "realism" in the writing of young adult novels. Yet Hinton's book also contains haunting lyricism; indeed, the tension...
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