S: E. Hinton

The Outsiders

"The Outsiders" is a story of US teenage gangsterism.

Summary

Ponyboy Curtis lives in a city of Oklahoma. He is the narrator of the story. He lives together with his two older brothers. They live on the east-side of the city where all the Greasers are situated. The Greasers are a gang. The opposite gang are the Socs. They live on the west-side of the city. Socs is an abbreviation for the socials, the jet set, the rich kids. In the greasers gang are only poor kids. They have got long hair with grease in it. That is why they are called Greasers. Greasers and Socs fight each other.

One day Ponyboy talks with a girl of a Soc's and spends the whole evening with her. This Soc, Bob, does not like that. In the same night a friend of Ponyboy's Johnny and Ponyboy himself are walking through a park. Bob and four other Socs pursue and stop them. One Soc catches Ponyboy and shoves his face into a fountain. Johnny sees how Ponyboy suffers. He takes his knife and stabs Bob.

The other Soc stops shoving Ponyboy's face. The Socs realize that Bob is dead and they run away.

Ponyboy and Johnny hide from the police and go outside the city. They stay some days in the country. Near the hiding-place there is an old church. One day the church is burning. There are some kids around and in the church. Johnny and Ponyboy go in to save the children from the burning church. Both are hurt and the ambulance brings them to the hospital. Johnny and Ponnyboy are celebrated as heros but Johnny dies because of his injuries. After this all the police kills Dally, another member of the greasers gang, because he tries to hide.

Some characters

Ponyboy:

Ponyboy is 14 year old and has two older brothers, Darril and Sodapop. These names are not only nicknames, their parents choosed these names. But the parents were killed by a car crash. Ponyboy is the narrator of the story. He likes to read books and has good grades at school. The most greasers do not like to go to school and do not like to read books. Ponyboy is intelligent and really does not like fights. He is absolutely not a typical greaser. Typical greasers are aggressive and like fights. When they are bored they stand around and are waiting for troubles.

Sodapop:

Sodapop is the second-oldest brother of Ponyboy's. He works on a filling station and is handsome. Ponyboy really likes him. Sodapop is the person Ponyboy likes to speak and discuss with most. He is always happy-go-lucky. Ponyboy says that Sodapop will never grow up at all.

Darril:

Darry is Ponyboys oldest brother. He looks after Ponyboy. I think Darry tries to replace the parents but Ponyboy does not like this. Darry is the most tight boy of the gang. He has gone through a lot in his twenty years and grown up too fast. Darry just looks like the father but act exactly the opposite from him. Hiis not ever sorry for anything he does, he is hard.

Johnny:

Johnny is the youngest Greaser, next to Ponyboy. He is smaller than the rest, with a slight build. Nobody of the gang could beat him. Johnny, also called Johnnycake is the gang's pet, everyone's kid brother. His father is always beating him up, and his mother ignores him. He would have run away a million times if the gang had not been there. If it had not been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are.

Dally:

If i had to pick the real character of the gang, it would be Dally. Dally was tougher, colder and meaner than the rest of the Greasers. Some people say that he had been killed by the police because he had wanted to.

About the author

By the time she was 16 year old, Susan Eloise Hinton was a published author. While still in high school in her hometown (Tulsa, Oklahoma) Hinton put in words what she saw and felt growing up and called it "The Outsiders", a now classic story of two sets of high school rivals, the Greasers and the Socs. Because her hero was a Greaser and outsider, and her tale was one of gritty realism, Hinton launched a revolution in young adult literature.

Since her narrator was a boy, Hinton's publishers suggested that she publish under the name of S. E. Hinton; they feared their readers wouldn't respect a 'macho' story written by a woman. Hinton says today, 'I don't mind having two identities; in fact, I like keeping the writer part separate in some ways.

Today, more than twenty-five years after its first publication, "The Outsiders" ranks as a classic. Finally, someone was writing about the real concerns and emotions of a teenager. "The Outsiders" marked the beginning of a new kind of realism in books written for the young adult market, and Hinton's next four books followed suit.

She wrote her second book while she was in college at the University of Tulsa, studying to be a teacher. David Inhofe, who is now her husband, was her boyfriend then and was instrumental in helping her get her second book written. Hinton was suffering from writer's block. Inhofe refused to go out with her at night unless she wrote two pages during the day, and slowly but steadily over four months, she compiled the manuscript that became "That Was Then, This is Now", a story of drugs, delinquency, and a tough kid making a tough decision. She and David were married in 1970; the second book was published in 1971.

Her third book, "Rumble Fish", was published in 1975. Hinton was inspired to write it by a magazine photo she had saved since 1967, of a boy on a motorcycle. "Tex" followed, and drew the attention of Walt Disney Studios. In 1982, Disney's movie version, starring Matt Dillon, was released. Dillon later starred in movies of "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish", and he and Hinton have become friends over the years. In 1985, Paramount Pictures released "That Was Then, This is Now" and Fox Television adapted "The Outsiders" for a television series.

Following books are:

Taming the Star Runner

Big David, Little David

The Puppy Sister

Author facts

Born: April 22, New York City

Education: A one-room school in Cuba, 3 years at Columbia University

Currently lives: Brooklyn, New York

Previous jobs: Teacher, journalist

Hobbies: playing piano, riding her horse

My personal response to the text

I liked reading "The Outsiders". It was not difficult to read and so I had rarely to look up for words. What I liked most were the different characters of the persons in the story.

The book is easy to read but it does not contain a topic I really like to discuss. Next time I will choose a more difficult book with more complex topics.