I first read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton when I was in 7th grade. I have read it probably about ten times or more since then and it is one of the books that goes with me to every new home. I cried the first time I read it, and every time after that even though I knew what was going to happen. What is it about a story, that can make me feel the same sadness and sense of loss even after repeated readings?
The Outsiders is told from the point of view of Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser, a hood, or in today’s terms, a kind of self proclaimed gangbanger or gangster, but he’s not really. Ponyboy’s parents are dead, having died in a car accident about six months before the beginning of the story. He lives with his older brothers Soda, a high school drop out, and Darry, who is working two jobs to keep the family together. They live in the southern part of the US sometime in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. Ponyboy’s friends, his gang, are all greasers. They are poor. Many have parents who don’t care about them at all. Some of the parents beat their kids. Many of them drink too much. They are tough and I probably would cross the street if I saw them, instead of having to walk past them. They are not the boys who my parents would have wanted me to bring home. Yet, they are more than that. That is just what you would see if you only read their physical description, or maybe met them in a parking lot or saw them at the movies.
The story itself is basically about a bunch of teens who are mostly from the “wrong side of the tracks”. The appeal of the story in some ways, is it is about trying to fit in, or find your way, whatever that is. Most people can relate to that somehow. But, Hinton, through her writing, lets you see more. She made me want to be with the characters, to run and fight with them, to talk with them. I felt, and still feel, like they are people I know, my friends. I have very little in common with them on the surface, but Hinton makes me know them personally.
Because it’s Ponyboy’s story, you are privy to all his thoughts and feelings. He talks to you. His grammar is not always correct. He doesn’t always use complete sentences. He writes the way he talks. His vocabulary is easy to understand. He might be in a conversation or dialog with another character in the book, but Hinton includes his thoughts with the use of brackets. In the middle of defending grease and long hair he is wondering what kind of world he lives in when all he has to be proud of is being a hood and having greasy hair. Hinton chooses words that sound like a 14 year old. Ponyboy sounds real.
Hinton lets us see the story through Ponyboy’s eyes. Ponyboy tells us that he is a good athlete and he doesn’t really like fighting but he does because it is part of being a greaser. He doesn’t directly tell us that he likes to read and draw, but it comes up often during his telling of the story. He is the character we know best, but through him we know the others as well. They become real because he reacts to them in conversation and tells us about them through stories and his own thoughts. He describes what he is seeing and feeling all around him and because of that, sometimes we don’t get to see the real depth of the other characters until he does. But, we do get to know the others and they become real as well. Hinton uses Ponyboy’s observations to teach us about the others instead of just writing a paragraph to explain them. Ponyboy gives us the background on the characters through anecdotes in the story. They become more than just the stereotypes that Ponyboy describes in the beginning of the book.
S.E. Hinton was only 16 when she published this book. Maybe the right sounding words came easy to her then because of her age, but as I read the story again as an adult, I still want to be there with them and I still want the story to continue. The power of a well-written character, one that has a true voice through the words chosen and the way they are used, brings that character alive for me.
