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What is the exposition of The Outsiders?

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The exposition is the beginning of the story, when Ponyboy is walking back alone from a Paul Newman movie. The reader learns about the Greasers and the Socs, and what Ponyboy’s life is like. Some Socs start to jump Ponyboy, but the Greasers save him. This is the exposition because none of the main action has started yet.

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The beginning of The Outsiders introduces the reader to the narrator, fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, and what his life is like in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

As Ponyboy walks home from a Paul Newman movie, he thinks about some of his fellow gang members in his gang called the Greasers. He also thinks about the Greaser’s rival gang called the Socs, which tells the reader about one of the main sources of conflict in Ponyboy’s life. The reader also learns that the Greasers are poorer than the Socs and “wilder.” Ponyboy’s discussion of the gangs suggests that the Socs jump Greasers and stir up trouble for thrills, while the Greasers steal and get involved in fights sometimes because they need money or protection.

While Ponyboy is walking, some members of the Socs pull up to him and are about to jump him. But then another member of the Greasers named Darry comes...

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up and Ponyboy is safe. This scene introduces the reader to the bonds between the Greasers.

This is considered the exposition in the book because the main conflict has not yet been introduced. An exposition is similar to an introductory paragraph in an essay. The reader learns important background information, including who the characters are, what the characters are like, and what the setting is.

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In the exposition of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, there are several pieces of information that indicate that the novel is set in the late 1950s or early 1960s. When the novel opens, the narrator has just left a movie starring Paul Newman. Newman's most popular movies were in theaters during the 1950s and 1960s, providing the reader with a wide time frame for the setting.

As Ponyboy's story continues to unfold, he refers to his own group of friends as the Greasers and the rival gang as the Socs. These terms can help to further narrow the time frame of the novel. Greasers was a term that was more commonly used in the 1950s to describe boys of the middle to lower class who typically worked on cars. Based upon these indicators, it would be acceptable to presume that the novel is set somewhere around the late 1950s to early 1960s.

With that being said, one of the compelling elements of The Outsiders is its ability to transcend time periods and social settings to become applicable to a wide array of readers. While the setting of the novel may have been the 1950s or 1960s, the struggle of the boys to figure out who they are and where they belong in the world is one that readers can understand and connect with no matter when the book is read.

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