Although “The Outsiders” was published in 1967, many modern people can still connect with the tragic yet action packed book.
The author of this book, S.E. Hinton, published this book at 18 years old. The system of gangs and friendships were all based off of S.E. Hinton’s own childhood. Using writing as a way of telling her own story, she wrote about a boy named Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year-old who experiences the difficulties and conflicts between two groups, Greasers and Socs.
This popular book has been widely used for both middle schoolers and high schoolers. This classic book has deep meanings and important lessons that are still important for modern teenagers now to understand. When it comes to getting a lesson out of “The Outsiders”, there is a huge variety of things we can take out of this book.
Ms. Jessy Hale, English teacher on the All stars team, expresses her thoughts on the importance of the lessons that can be found in the book.
“The skills and lessons you learned from this book are applicable to our lives,” said Ms. Hale.
She believes that there are a lot more similarities from this generation of teens that relate with the book even though we might not know it. Just because the characters in “The Outsiders” used old slang and didn’t have as much electronics as we do now, doesn’t mean that we still can’t learn from this book and apply its lessons to our own lifes.
“I think there’s a direct correlation to this generation of teens,” she says. “The relationships and conversations of the characters and today’s teens relate.”
Olivia Adams, English teacher, on the Champions team, shares similar thoughts about the lessons we can learn from this book.
“I think no matter what era or generation it is, the problems of different social groups are always going to exist,” she says. “The lesson you learn about how not to judge people is like ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ — everyone can learn this. You never know what a person is going through.”
Ms. Adams shares a personal connection with this book.
“I think I’ve never been through such an extreme of a situation, but there were times where people judged me and I judged people,” says Ms. Adams.
One of Ms. Hale’s favorite parts of the book is one of the most action packed events, the rumble. She loves how the mix of emotions and suspense is so intricately woven and written out by S.E. Hinton.
“The rumble is my favorite part. I think there’s a lot of suspense that builds up to it, it’s really intense. I really like the images and dialogue Hinton uses,” says Ms. Hale.
Ms. Adams enjoys the awe inspiring poem in “The Outsiders” called: “Stay Gold.” She said this poem really digs deep into your heart once you realize its true meaning. She expresses how she enjoys the scenery and elaborate description shown.
Ms. Adams says, “The best part of the story was when the two boys are in the church and Ponyboy reads the book. When he reads out the poem ‘Stay gold’ the imagery is beautiful.”
There are also some parts of the book where people think could have gone differently. Ms. Hale suggests that the ending could have been different.
Ms. Hale said, “I’m not a big fan of the ending.”
She thinks that S.E. Hinton should have concluded with something calmer, telling us where all the characters ended up.
Ms. Adams also believes that this could be a never ending story, leading all the characters to a peaceful ending. Ms. Adams also wishes that Darrell Curtis, a character in “The Outsiders,” was rewarded for working so hard to keep his brothers together. Darry (Darrel) is the eldest brother in the Curtis family and works hard jobs in order to stay with his brothers and prove that he is a good guardian.
“I want Darry to be rewarded for his effort in making a happy ending for the Curtis brothers,” said Ms. Adams.
Although Ms. Adams thinks Darry should be awarded, she is amused by Two-Bit and Marcia. She thinks that they were the most funny and numerous people but were hurt the most.
“I have to have two characters: Two-Bit and Marcia,” said Ms. Adams.
Ms. Hale believes that Johnny had the biggest impact on the story line. Johnny kills Bob Sheldon in self defense, which is arguably one of the biggest conflicts in “The Outsiders.”
Ms. Hale said, “Even though Ponyboy is the narrator, what Johnny did and the actions he took affected everyone.”
Both Ms. Hale and Ms. Adams agreed that S.E. Hinton wrote this book kind of as an outlet for her past emotions and childhood experiences.
Ms. Hale says, “Hinton needed to have an outlet to express her thoughts and lives and she did it in a healthy way.”
Maanya Divakar, 12, on the Champions team, said she enjoyed the emotion packed book.
“A big part of the book was relationships,” she says, “but I would have liked to see character development.”
Maanya gives an example of how “Steve Randall,” a character in the book, could have been shown more.
“I would change the fact that Steve was never in the story,” Maanya says. “I wanted to see more development.”
Yet, she still acknowledges how S.E. Hinton poured her effort and emotions into the book
“She might have looked at the environment around her and based the book off of her surroundings,” she says, “it’s basically publishing a diary.”
Will MacKay, 13, on the Champions team, enjoyed this well written book but generally prefers a different genre then this.
Will says, “Well, it has this oldy vibe. It was okay, but I prefer fantasy and realistic fiction.”
But Will still appreciates how S.E. Hinton wrote this classical book even though it wasn’t his favorite.
“It was written really well,” Will said.
Along with Ms. Adams, Will favors the church scenes where he believes Ponyboy and Johnny communicate with each other and get to know each other more. It developed more feelings for both characters. He thought they got time to share deep things and become more connected as teenage boys living in the same era.
“Probably I really like when they were in the church alone because it gave them time to connect and it helped Ponyboy grow as a person.”
Maanya’s favorite part was when Bob died, she thinks that that’s when the story took a turn and became more interesting. She believes that Johnny killing Bob affected all the characters in the future.
“The best part of the story was when Bob died because that’s when the story starts,” said Maanya.
Speaking of characters, Darry and Ponyboy have many disagreements throughout the book. Only towards the end, did they finally bond better. Maanya feels that they were happy for so little time.
Maanya said, “It felt wrong of Darry and Ponyboy because in the beginning of the book they were bad and they were good in too little time,”
She thought that mending relationships takes time and in the book it happened too quickly.
Will believes that Ponyboy should have listened to Darry because Darry was older.
“Ponyboy should have listened to Darry, his guardian,” said Will.
Will thinks that if Ponyboy listened to Darry more, things might have turned out differently.
“This book provides an example of the consequences of both bad actions and good actions,” said Will. “Like: be kinder to your siblings.”
Will also doesn’t really like the character Dally. He thinks that Dally was rude to Cherry and Marcia in the beginning of the book. In general, he doesn’t believe that Dally is completely a good person due to the way he treats people.
“Dally seemed like a bad influence,” Will said, “ I didn’t really like Dally.”
Another character Will talks about is Johnny. He thinks that Johnny helps soften everyone up, including Dally.
“You need Johnny to make everyone a tad bit nicer, and to show that soft part in everyone,” said Will.
Ms. Hale believes that we all can learn a great amount from this book, from controlling your emotions, to dealing with conflicts between social groups, to understanding that S.E. Hinton didn’t just write this book to entertain, she also wrote it to inform.
Ms. Hale says, “I’m team Johnny. Hashtag team Johnny!”
