The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

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This book gives us the opportunity to know about this wonderful little boy, who is called Ponyboy. He is a lovely boy who wants everybody their best and because of his intelligence, he is the one to ask when there is a problem. Ponyboy lives together with his older brothers Sodapop and Darrel after their parents were killed in a car accident.

Ponyboy is still going to school, meanwhile both of his brothers work instead of going to college to support them with money. Pony is a clever boy and he has high grades at school. Unfortunately he doesn’t like to study as much as Darrel wants him to do and it causes some fights between them.

Ponyboy knows his talent but I think that he is tired of being the one who is expected to be the good boy all the time. Darrel is shouting at Ponyboy every day for not being home in time and so on. He is the one who worries about everything and he gets angry when he doesn’t get what he wants or knows where Soda and Ponyboy are. Soda is more quiet but he is a very kind person and cares about everyone. Ponyboy has great confidence in him. He is having a bit of a problem to accept Darry because of their fights, but he loves his brothers and would do anything for them.
Darrel tries to make a good atmosphere at home, because he knows that if they cause problems Ponyboy and Sodapop would be sent to a foster home.

The siblings belong to the Greasers, a group of young adults who have a tough life. Most of them don’t have families and they call the gang their family instead. The greasers live at the east side of the village while the Socs live at the west-side. The greasers are poorer than the Socs and some of the Greasers used to hold up gas stations and commit some other crimes. They look very different; the Greasers have long hair and dress in tight jeans and leather jackets while the Socs dress in a bit more expensive and elegant clothes. These groups almost fight each other but they know better than to cause so much attention that the police will arrest them.

One day Pony and his friends were at the movies to see a film, and they started talking to some girls from the Socs. It is the beginning of this book, because after the movie they continued to talk with the Socs, and it all ended with a big fight between the Greasers and the Socs.

Ponyboy used to think a lot. He has many thoughts about life and he likes to watch the sunrise and think of something else than school and stuff he has to do during the day. He wants to discover the world, outside the place he lives in. He wants to go to college and read a lot of things, because reading is his big passion. He used to think of the differences between the Socs and the Greasers and he liked to talk about his thoughts with his friend Johnny. Johnny is still young but has so much more experience of life, mostly bad things. His parents don’t care about him at all, and he used to sleep in someone’s garden or at some friend’s place. The gang is the only safety Johnny has, and he needs the gang as much as they need him. Johnny had been really badly beaten by the Socs a few years ago, and he will never forget it. Some troubles caused Johnny and Ponyboy to fight with some Socs and it all ended in Johnny killing a Soc to save Ponyboy’s life.

They ran away with help from another Greaser: Dallas. Dallas is an adult and gets a lot of respect from the others in the gang. Johnny regards him as a brother. Dallas means everything to Johnny and without telling him, Dallas feels the same about Johnny. They have some invisible friendship and when Johnny and Ponyboy escape from the police Dallas helps them by giving them some money and a gun.

The Soc Johnny killed was called Bob, and he was the boyfriend of one of the girls Ponyboy and his friends started to talk to at the movie theatre. Bob is the leader of the Socs and he is very cocky about the ones who aren’t his own members. He lived a life of luxury and affluence and he doesn’t care for any rules, he was the leader, not the follower. I can imagine his frustration when his girlfriend was talking to some Greasers, who besides being were much as young as he was. He wanted to take his revenge and it all degenerated.

Compared to Johnny and Ponyboy he hasn’t got any problems outwards. Because of his attitude I can think that he scared people to do what he wanted them to do. For that reason I can think that he was quite a lonely person. All these persons, Ponyboy, Johnny and Bob seemed to be alone in one way. I’m sure that Bob wanted to be kinder to the people in his surroundings.

I think it is important that the adults show love to their children during their growth. It means a lot to hear the parents tells you that they love you as the person you are, not for how many good marks you have at school.

It’s also important for the parents to hear that they do the right things and that the children dare to show how much the parents mean to them.
I definitely think that I had been affected because of what happened when I was younger. I know it by heart, because it was exactly the thing I didn’t tell my parents. They separated when I was ten years old and I didn’t understand why. They gave me no reason and if it hadn’t been for my boyfriend I wouldn’t have known it today. But he told me that I had a right to ask them because they were my parents, and I often think about this. After they had separated I never felt really happy. I was very surprised, for that reason when my mum told me that they were going to be divorced, my dad wasn’t at home and it makes me angry every time I think about it. I have never told my parents that I love them after that situation. I don’t really know if I love them; because they had done awful things to me and my siblings without telling us why. It was my dad I was most angry at in the beginning but later when I had to search for the reasons for their divorce I was angry at my mother as well. I heard my mum telling a friend of hers everything and in case of that I heard wrong I had been angry at my parents for about five years. It has been a little bit better, because my boyfriend told me to talk with them and ask why they had done like they did.

It is wrong not to tell the children the truth just because they are little. I had to live with my anger and fear for five years and I will never get any experiences of that kind of thing again.
It has affected my whole childhood and I know that the truth is unbelievable for a child to feel safe in the family.

If I should compare my life to Ponyboy’s I think that his life was much worse than mine. Living without any parents couldn’t be easy. And for Darrel who has the responsibility as an adult to take care of his brothers.

I was offered to choose an episode that made a great impression to me, and I will choose a moment when Johnny and Ponyboy were hiding from the police in a church outside the village.
Ponyboy wakes up earlier than Johnny and watches the sun rise while thinking of a poem. When Johnny wakes up a short time later they watch the sunrise together and Johnny exclaims:

“Gosh” – Johnny’s voice beside me made me jump – “that sure was pretty.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“All gold and silver”
“Uhmmmm,” I said.
“Too badly it couldn’t stay like that all the time,” he said.
“Nothing gold can stay” I was remembering a poem I’d read once.
“What?” Johnny asked.

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s flower;
But only so an hour,
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes never down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

Johnny was starring at me. “Where did you learn that? It was what I meant.”
“Robert Frost wrote it. He meant more by it than I understand, though. I always remembered it because I never quite understand what he meant by it.”

Afterwards they discussed the meaning of the poem and I really understand why they are such good friends as they are. Johnny knows the feeling and he learns Ponyboy to understand it. These two have a lot in common; they could discuss things like anybody in the gang could. I think it means that they are a little bit m...