This article is about the novel. For other uses, see The Outsiders.

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The Outsiders
Author	S.E. Hinton
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young Adult Fiction
Publisher	Dell Publishing
Publication date	April 24, 1967
Media type	Print (soft cover)
Pages	180
ISBN	ISBN 0-670-53257-6 (hardcover edition)
OCLC Number	64396432

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by Susan Eloise Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton was 15 when she began writing the novel^[1], and 16 when it was published. The book follows two rival groups, the Greasers and the Socs (pronounced by the author "so-shes", short for Socials), who are divided by their socioeconomic status.

A film version was produced in 1983, and a short-lived television series appeared in 1989, picking up the story where the movie left off.

[edit] Plot (spoilers included)

Narrotor/Protagonist, Ponyboy Curtis and his brothers, Soda and Darry, belong to a gang of lower-class people called Greasers. Many of them have led hard lives and are tough, angry and unforgiving. They often fight with the Socs, the group of wealthy, privileged boys who beat them up for fun. Ponyboy is a shy and quiet boy. He gets good grades and likes to draw and read. Sodapop, the middle brother, is very handsome and likable. The family often gets into fights over Ponyboy's future. Darry is the oldest brother. He has taken care of the family ever since their parents died in a car crash a few months back. He is very serious, works most of the time, and often yells at Ponyboy. Darry is athletic and was a good student, but he had to give up his education to care for is brothers. Dallas (Dally) Winston is the roughest of the group, having grown up on the streets of New York, he seems to enjoy being a criminal and thinks that the law is a joke. Two-Bit Matthews has a prodigious sense of humor, owns a stolen black handled switch-blade, and jokes around a lot. Steve Randle is Soda's best friend and they work at the same gas station. Johnny is Ponyboy's best friend. He lives with his alcoholic parents who don't seem to care much about him. His parents abuse him, causing him to always seem scared. Johnny is the group's "pet". Recently, Johnny was jumped and beat up by a Soc wearing heavy rings. Ever since then, Johnny has been paranoid about Socs and always carries a switchblade.

As the novel opens, Ponyboy is leaving a movie theater when he is jumped by a group of Socs. He is saved from the attack by his friends and brother, Soda. That night, Dally, Johnny and Ponyboy go see a drive-in movie. They meet two Soc girls, Cherry Valance and Marcia. Dally bothers Cherry by making vulgar remarks to her. Johnny stands up for the girls to everyone's surprise. Angered, Dallas goes to the concession stand for cokes. When he returns Cherry pours the coke Dallas bought for her in his face. Ponyboy realizes that Cherry is nothing like any Soc he has met before. Ponyboy and Cherry also go to the concession stand, and Ponyboy tells her the story of Johnny getting bruttally beaten by a group of socs, one of which was wearing rings. Cherry tells Ponyboy that "things are rough all over" indicating that the rich kids have problems of their own. On the way home, Cherry's boyfriend Bob Sheldon and Marcia's boyfriend Randy Adderson see them with Johnny, Two-Bit and Ponyboy outside the movie and think the boys were trying to "pick them up". It turns out that Cherry's boyfriend is the same boy with rings who beat Johnny up. Marcia and Randy leave after Bob and Two-Bit are trying to start a fight which only Cherry can prevent. She prevents the fight by riding home with Bob and Randy (along with her friend Marcia).

Later that same night, Ponyboy and Johnny go to the Greasers' hideout, a vacant parking lot. Johnny asks Ponyboy if he knows of a place where there are just ordinary people, and no fights and gangs. Ponyboy's telling that he, Darry and Soda often went into the countryside with their parents before their parents died and maybe that's a place of peace. While thinking about this, both boys fall asleep on the grass sitting on a piece of cardboard. They wake up several hours later in the middle of the night. Ponyboy decides to run home, but Johnny says he'll stay in the parking lot until the morning because his parents don't care where he is anyway.

When Ponyboy comes home late at night, Darry starts an argument with him and hits him across the face. Ponyboy has never been hit by anyone in his family before, so out of shock, Ponyboy bolts out of the house and runs back to Johnny. The boys go into the park to cool off, where Bob, Randy and three other drunk Socs find them and put them into a fight. Bob Sheldon nearly drowned Ponyboy in a fountain. Terrified and angry, Johnny stabs Bob, scaring the other four socs away. When Ponyboy wakes up he finds Johnny with blood on his hands clutching a switchblade. Ponyboy finds Bob dead with blood spreading throughout the pavement. Ponyboy throws up after he sees Bob dead on the ground.

The two boys run to find Dally, knowing he will know what to do. He gives them some money and a loaded gun and tells them to hide in a church a short distance out of town in Windrixville. They stay there for a few days, reading to each other and they both cut off their tuff looking hair to not fit the description of when they murdered Bob. Johnny is thoughtful like Ponyboy, and they get along very well. While they are hiding out in the church, Ponyboy reads Gone With the Wind to Johnny, and one day as they are watching the sunset Ponyboy recited the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. Johnny tells him he thinks the poem means that you are gold when you are young and everything's new.

When Dally comes to find them, he takes them to get some food and then reveals that Cherry has become a spy for the Greasers. The fights between the Greasers and Socs have exploded in intensity since Bob's death and Two Bit had to fight some off. Also Ponyboy receives a letter from Soda that describes the aftermath of the killing and how it has thoroughly upset Ponyboy's brothers, particularly Darry.

Johnny tells Dally that he wants to turn himself in. Dally is very upset by Johnny wanting to do this. He says he does not want Johnny to get hard in jail like he did. Johnny says he has to because it isn't fair to Ponyboy have to hide out because his brothers are worried about him. Johnny asks Dally if his parents have asked about him while he has been missing, and Dallas tells him they haven't, and tries to convince him that it doesn't matter. He tells Johnny that he should just stay cool and nothing can hurt him. As they leave the restaurant for home, they notice the church has caught on fire and several small children are trapped inside. Without thinking, Johnny and Ponyboy rescue them, but a large piece of burning wood falls on Johnny and breaks his back. Dally rescues Johnny from the burning church, burning his own arm along the way. Ponyboy spends a short time in the hospital. When his brothers arrive at the hospital, Darry breaks down and cries upon seeing Ponyboy. Ponyboy then realizes that Darry really does care about him, and he only stays on Ponyboy's case because he cares about him and wants him to have a good future.

As Ponyboy is recovering at home, Two-Bit shows up and informs him of the news that Johnny and Ponyboy have been declared heroes for rescuing the kids in the fire but that Johnny will be charged with manslaughter in Bob's death. Ponyboy and Two-Bit go out for a walk only to encounter some Socs in a street corner. The Greasers zand Socs have agreed to settle the turf war with a major rumble in the vacant lot, so the Socs don't bother them. Randy, however, talks with Ponyboy and laments the death of his close friend Bob and how his parents spoiled him rotten. He also informs him that he's chosen not to show up for the rumble. Next Ponyboy and Two-Bit visit Johnny and Dally in the hospital. Johnny's in bad condition with multiple burns and a broken back; also when his mother comes to visit him, he refuses to see her. Dally's recovering well and insists on going to the rumble tonight.

The next evening the fight occurs between the Greasers and the Socs, which the Greasers win. After the rumble, Dally and Ponyboy visit Johnny in the hospital, where he dies in front of their eyes. His last words for Ponyboy were "stay gold". Dally is overwhelmed, and runs out of the hospital. Soon after, back at home, Darry and the others get a phone call from Dally, who has robbed a grocery store. The boys run out to find him and hide him, but the police are chasing him in a police car. Dally pulls out a gun, which in fact was not even loaded and only used as a bluff. The police don't know this and shoot Dally down. Dally couldn't live without Johnny so he committed suicide by cop. Ponyboy faints and stays sick and delirious for nearly a week. While he is recovering at home, Randy (one of the socs who jumped him the night of Bob's death) comes to see him. Ponyboy keeps telling him that he was the one who killed Bob. Ponyboy is in denial about Johnny's death and about what happened that night at the park.

After Ponyboy recovers, there is a hearing to determine if he and Soda can remain in Darry's care. Knowing that Ponyboy had a concussion because of a doctor's testimony, Ponyboy is not allowed to take the stand to testify about Bob's death. The judge rules that the boys can stay with Darry.

When Ponyboy goes back to school, his grades drop dramatically. He begins to run into things and forget things. Although he is failing English, his teacher says he will pass him if he writes a decent theme. Darry and Pony argue because Ponyboy wanted to go out for a ride even though he didn't do any work on his theme. The argument upsets Soda, so when Ponyboy and Darry ask him to pick sides, he runs out of the house. Darry and Ponyboy catch up to him and Soda tells them how the fights between his brothers make him sick, because they always force him to take sides. The brothers resolve to not fight anymore.

Ponyboy is reading the copy of Gone with the Wind that Johnny gave to him before dying. In the pages he finds a note from Johnny describing how he will die proudly after saving the kids from the fire. Johnny also urges Ponyboy to 'stay gold'b by which he means to stay the way he is, and follow his dreams and goals. With this in mind, Ponyboy finally decides to write his English assignment about everything that has happened since the beginning of the book, and it is hinted that the novel itself is Ponyboy's English assignment; he starts off with the exact same line as the beginning of the story: "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home..."

[edit] References