By: Susan Eloise Hinton
Hinton’s full name is Susan Eloise Hinton. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on July 22, 1950. At age 16 Hinton wrote The Outsiders, the story of two rival high school groups. A friend’s mother helped Hinton publish the book. It remains Hinton’s most famous and best-loved novel.
Summary
The story is narrated by Ponyboy, a 14 year old teen that is part a some type of gang, the greasers, this gang is form by the poor kids of the town, their rivals the socs are the rich and middle class kids of the town, the story starts when Ponyboy was walking back home after watching a movie, his was ambush by some socs that try to cut his hair, he save his haircut because some members of his gang save him, his back brother Darry scolds Pony for being walking alone, the gang must be together, Jonny, Dally, Darry, Sodapop, Ponyboy, Steve and Two-bit
Next day Dally, Johnny and Ponyboy, go to the cinema, there they met Cherry and Marcia, the girlfriends of the socs, Pony and Cherry talk, and he appreciated the talk they have, later the walk home to leave the ladies but they boyfriends appear and Johnny and Pony go to a vacant and fell asleep, when pony wake-up he go home, and his older brother Darry scolded him again, his middle brother sodapop try to defend his little brother but Darry was so angry he slapped him, Pony ran away and met again with Johnny, The two of them walked around where Bob, Cherry's boyfriend intercepted them and attacked them along with the rest of the Soc gang. Bob tried to drown Ponyboy but Johnny stabbed Bob, killing him. After seeing what they did, they both run away and ask Dally for help. He gives Ponyboy a gun, money and his jacket, and tells them to go to an abandoned church in Windrixville, they both obey and flee, they spend a week hiding and Dally visits them and invites them to have hamburgers.
While they were outside the church, a fire breaks out and when they return they see that some children were trapped, Johnny, Dally and Ponyboy go to their rescue, they both help the children to get out and ponyboy avoids burns from Dally's bag, but dally and Johnny are injured, Dally only on his arm but Johnny is totally burned, the 3 return to their city and all their friends visit them in the hospital, after that a gang war occurs and the greasers win, Pony returns to the hospital to see to Johnny but he is already very weak and before dying he tells him "don't lose your gold" and dies. Dally goes crazy and robs a store because Johnny died but the police kill him too, the problems between brothers continue but in the end they realize that Darry and Ponyboy were hurting Sodapop for their fights, Ponyboy writes a story for his homework, the same one that we as a reader were reading
We would recommend this book to more boys and girls our age because it is easy and fun to read, you feel identified with some of the characters, we think that the problems that some of them deal with are real things that happen in the world and this book conveys them very well.
Characters:
Favorite one:
Ponyboy Curtis is our favorite character because he is a boy who, although he has gone through adversities in his life and obstacles, learned from those situations to develop as a person, which becomes evident as the book progresses. He can also be seen as a positive point in the fact that Ponyboy has a literary bent, which Hinton utilizes to demonstrate that gang members are not always lawbreakers and that poverty does not automatically imply savagery or a lack of culture.
The one you disliked and why:
Speaking from the subjective part of the protagonist, our least favorite character was Steve Randle. It may have to do with the fact that Ponyboy almost doesn't like him but in our perspective he was part of the group but he never did anything to stand out within it, that is, there was not a single moment in which he said something significant or relevant. to give continuity to the story. It didn't seem like it was required, which seemed like it was just there to be.
Conclusion of the story
We always have to fight for what we consider to be right, like Johnny did when he saved Ponyboy from drowning, Ponyboy helped children so they didn't get burned, and on the other hand, trying to overcome the tragedy to move on. Likewise, he not only wanted to help himself out of that situation, but he also wanted to help people who were going through the same thing and thus find something to fight for.
We can conclude that things happen for a reason and even if we have problems in our lives, difficulties, hard times, etc... we must learn from them and from that point on, being able to achieve a better understanding and appreciation of life.
