The Outsiders

In S. E. Hinton's classic novel The Outsiders, the Greasers and Socs are rival gangs, which are engaged in a tragic, ever-going conflict that leads to death and trauma for both social groups. The...

The Outsiders is a 1967 young adult novel written by American writer S. E. Hinton. Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis—a poor fourteen-year-old orphan who, along with his...

Ponyboy Curtis is a perceptive, conflicted teenager, who is extremely loyal and selfless. In the story, Ponyboy gains significant insight into the lives of rival Soc members after having an...

In chapter 1, Ponyboy tells readers that the greaser gang is essentially his family. His mom and dad are dead, and he has his two brothers; however, the gang is such a tight-knit group of friends...

Chapter 2 has Ponyboy and Cherry meeting and talking at length about fairly deep topics. Ponyboy even goes so far as to share what happened to Johnny that makes him so skittish. Cherry shares with...

Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is about the death of innocence and the transience of life. Basically, all good things must eventually come to an end. Gold becomes a symbol for the...

To "stay gold" means to remain unspoiled, pure, and fresh. The line is something that Johnny tells Ponyboy as Johnny is dying. Johnny recalls a famous Robert Frost poem that Ponyboy recited to him...

In S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders, Ponyboy and Cherry talk about sunsets in Chapter Three. But Ponyboy doesn't remind Cherry that they both watch the sunsets, it's part of his thoughts after he...

At first glance, Dallas Winston, known to his friends as Dally, comes across as a tough guy. The first thing we learn about Dally is that he can sometimes be in a “dangerous mood.” He is tough,...

The greasers reside on the East Side of town and occupy a lower social class than the Socs. The greasers are also considered troublemakers and labeled as society's outcasts. They have terrible...

In Chapter 9 of The Outsiders, the boys are preparing for the rumble with the Socs. Before the rumble, Ponyboy asks some of the boys why they fight. Soda likes to fight because it's like a...

The novel begins and ends with the same sentence about Ponyboy stepping outside from a movie theater thinking about Paul Newman and a ride home. In Chapter 12, Ponyboy reads Johnny's moving letter...

Johnny leaves Ponyboy a note in the copy of Gone with the Wind that Johnny gives to Ponyboy. Johnny, who knows he is dying, tells Ponyboy that he doesn't mind dying now because he saved several...

Ponyboy's assignment is to write a theme about "anything (he) think(s) is important enough to write about...it isn't a reference theme...(it is his) own ideas and...experiences". The...

Johnny Cade is depicted as a vulnerable, quiet member of the Greasers, who comes from an abusive home and is considered the gang's pet. Unlike the other Greasers, Johnny does not enjoy breaking the...

In chapter 3, Cherry Valance speaks these words to Ponyboy after she hears him tell the story about the time Johnny was jumped by a group of Socs. Although Cherry sympathizes with Ponyboy and the...

S. E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders is a coming-of-age story that details the struggles of Ponyboy Curtis to find his place in society. The teenaged Pony feels pressure to show loyalty to his...

For starters, the Socs and the greasers have vast differences in physical appearance. While the Socs, who come from money, are well groomed and neat in appearance, the greasers, who hail from the...

Johnny is a character in The Outsiders who gets more love from the other Greasers than he gets from his own family. In chapter 2, Ponyboy says the following: I had seen Johnny take a whipping...

Sodapop, or Soda, is Ponyboy’s second-oldest brother behind Darry. Soda is sixteen-going-on-seventeen, and according to Ponyboy, Soda “never cracks a book at all,” and he also never drinks. Ponyboy...

The significance of the church fire scene in The Outsiders is that it enables Johnny to achieve redemption after killing the Soc in a gang fight. One night in a prior scene, some of the Socs find...

Ponyboy says this in reference to his thought that his older brother Darry does not love him. He says, Darry thought I was just another mouth to feed and somebody to holler at. Darry love me? … I...

Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy, the novel's protagonist, lives with his older brothers following their parents's death. He enjoys the company of Sodapop, who is easygoing and keeps the brothers...

Near the end of chapter 2, after Ponyboy tells Cherry about Johnny’s violent clash with the Socs, Cherry tells him, “Things are rough all over.” Before she says this to Ponyboy, she lets him know...

After killing Bob, a Soc, Johnny and Ponyboy escape to this church out in a pretty remote, mountainous location (which is wonderfully symbolic after Ponyboy's dreams of a simple life in the...

Head: Johnny’s biggest problem is that he is afraid. He is constantly abused by his father, but when he was jumped by the Socs he was badly hurt. “Johnny was scared of his own shadow” after he...

Chapter four of The Outsiders is the chapter that sets up the rest of the book. Pony and Johnny are in the park hanging out by the fountain. The two boys are talking about nothing too important...

Ponyboy’s opinion of the Socs begins to change through his interactions with Cherry. Largely because he had only thought of the Socs as a group, rather than considered them as individuals, Ponyboy...

In chapter 7, Ponyboy reads a newspaper article entitled, "JUVENILE DELINQUENTS TURN HEROES" and learns several significant pieces of information regarding the events surrounding Bob Sheldon's...

Early in chapter one, Ponyboy is attempting to tell his readers a little bit about himself. He describes himself, and several members of the Greaser gang. At one point, Pony describes the gang as...

The quick answer to this question is Ponyboy’s statement Things gotta get better, I figured. They couldn’t get worse. I was wrong. The words “I was wrong” make the reader think, “oh boy, what’s...

In Chapter 1, Ponyboy comments that he believes he is intelligent but has a tendency to make bad decisions. When Pony decides to walk to the movies by himself, he says, "It drives my brother Darry...

Most notably, Ponyboy finds himself in conflict with his society. The class conflicts drive the other plot conflicts. Pony is a greaser, characterized by a lower socioeconomic status and a...

One of the main messages in The Outsiders is that conflicts are destructive, particularly those that originate between people from different socioeconomic classes. Cherry tells Pony early in the...

In the first chapter of The Outsiders, Ponyboy shares that his parents were killed in a car accident. Since the death of their parents, Ponyboy and his two older brothers, Darry and Soda, are on...

While this page is actually from a slogan used to promote the 1983 film version of The Outsiders, it provides such a fitting description of the Greasers that thinking it’s from the book is an easy...

The drama in The Outsiders escalates when, in yet another conflict between the Socs and the greasers, Johnny winds up killing Bob because the Socs almost drowned Ponyboy in the fountain. To protect...

An example of a simile comes in chapter 1, when Ponyboy describes Dally as being "as wild as the boys in the downtown outfits." This is a particularly useful simile as it gives us an insight into...

Gone with the Wind is an American novel written by Margaret Mitchell in 1936. In The Outsiders, it symbolizes the closeness between Ponyboy and his friend Johnny. When the boys are first hiding out...

While Ponyboy and Johnny are hiding out at the abandoned church in Windrixville, they begin reading the novel Gone with the Wind to pass the time. Pony is impressed by Johnny's ability to grasp...

Sodapop is described as understanding and fun-loving. In Chapter 1, Ponyboy says of Sodapop, "Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything, almost." Ponyboy also says of Sodapop in...

Randy Adderson is a prominent Soc member and close friend of Bob Sheldon, who was tragically killed in an altercation with Johnny and Ponyboy. Unlike the other members of his Soc crew, Randy...

Text to text: One of the themes in The Outsiders is facing the death of a close friend. This same theme can be found in the contemporary hit The Hate U Give, a novel that evolves from Starr's grief...

Personification is a type of figurative language which is "a figure of speech in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are endowed with human form, character, traits, or...

S.E. Hinton uses the motif of sunsets to create a connection between two unlikely characters, Ponyboy Curtis and Cherry Valance. Although Ponyboy is a greaser and Cherry is a pretty, popular Soc...

Johnny is defending Dally in front of Cherry because greasers stick up for each other. This incident occurs in Chapter 2. Your quote is on page 26 of the 1989 Dell edition. Cherry is a Soc, and...