The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

FIRST PUBLISHED: 1967

TYPE OF WORK: Novel

TYPE OF PLOT: Social realism

TIME OF PLOT: 1960s

LOCALE: Tulsa, Oklahoma

Principal characters

• Ponyboy Curtisa fourteen-year-old boy
• Sodapop “Soda” and Darryl “Darry", his brothers
• Johnny Cade
• Dallas “Dally” Winston
• Keith “Two-Bit” Mathewsand
• Steve Randlethe Greasers, poor kids from the East Side of town who are friends of the Curtis brothers
• Bob Sheldon
• Randy Andersonand
• Sherri “Cherry” Valancethe Socs, rich kids from the West Side of town

The Story:

After his parents are killed in a car accident, Ponyboy Curtis becomes increasingly frustrated with the rules imposed on him by his oldest brother, Darry. Ponyboy thinks Darry hates him. He does not realize that Darry’s rules are meant to keep Ponyboy and his other brother, Soda, out of trouble. Darry is worried that if his brothers get in trouble, the three will be split up and sent to a boys’ home.

Ponyboy walks home from the movies alone. He is followed by a red Corvair full of Socs, the rich kids in town. Ponyboy notices the car and worries that the Socs might try to beat him up. His fears are not unfounded, since his friend Johnny Cade had recently been assaulted by such a group. The Socs get out of the car and threaten to cut off Ponyboy’s long, greasy hair. The Socs pin Ponyboy to the ground, and he screams for help. Ponyboy’s brothers and friends hear his cries for help and come to his aid. Ponyboy is shaken up but not seriously injured. Darry criticizes Ponyboy for his lack of common sense. He says that Ponyboy should know better than to walk home alone.

Later, Ponyboy goes to the drive-in with his friends Dally Winston and Johnny Cade. Dally starts talking dirty to two rich girls sitting near them. The redhead, Cherry Valance, tells Dally to leave them alone. Dally backs off and leaves. Cherry asks Ponyboy if he intends to pick up where Dally left off. Ponyboy says he does not. The girls strike up a conversation with Ponyboy despite the fact that he is from the wrong side of town.

Dally returns and starts taunting the girls again. Cherry throws her drink on him. Dally will not stop bothering the girls until Johnny intervenes on their behalf. When Johnny tells him to stop, Dally stalks off and does not come back. Cherry tells Ponyboy that she and her friend, Marcia, left their boyfriends because the boys were drunk. The girls ask Ponyboy and Johnny to sit with them. Two-Bit arrives before the movie is over, sneaks up on the group, and frightens Johnny. Cherry is surprised by the strength of Johnny’s reaction, until Ponyboy tells her that Johnny was jumped by a group of Socs a few months before.

After the movie, Two-Bit convinces the girls to let him give them a ride home. As they are walking to Two-Bit’s car, a Mustang full of Socs pulls up. Bob Sheldon and Randy Anderson, Cherry and Marcia’s boyfriends, plead with the girls to come with them and stop walking with “the bums.” Two-Bit takes offense at the comment. Cherry and Marcia agree to go with Bob and Randy in order to prevent a fight. Before Cherry leaves, she tells Ponyboy not to take it personally if she does not talk to him at school on Monday. Ponyboy understands: They are not in the same social class, and they never will be. Cherry also tells Ponyboy that she hopes she never sees Dally again, because she will fall for him if she does.

Two-Bit leaves. Ponyboy and Johnny continue walking home but stop at a vacant lot down the street to talk about meeting the girls. They wish that they lived in a place not divided into Greasers and Socs, where everyone is just plain and ordinary. The boys fall asleep in the vacant lot. Johnny wakes Ponyboy and tells him that he is going to stay in the lot instead of going home. Ponyboy realizes he has missed his curfew and rushes home.

When Ponyboy gets home, Darry is still awake, worried and angry. Ponyboy tries to explain, but Darry is tired of his excuses. When Soda tries to stick up for Ponyboy, Darry yells at him. Ponyboy defends Soda. The argument comes to an abrupt end when Darry slaps Ponyboy in the face. It is the first time Darry has used physical violence against his brother, and, though he tries to apologize, Ponyboy bolts from the house. He returns to the vacant lot, wakes Johnny up, and tells him that they are running away.

After running for several blocks, Ponyboy tells Johnny about the fight with Darry. Ponyboy thinks it over and suggests that they walk to a nearby park and back. He hopes that may provide enough time for him to cool off and go back home. While at the park, the two boys are confronted by Bob, Randy, and a couple of their friends. Bob and Randy want to pick a fight over the girls. Johnny notices the rings on Bob’s fingers and realizes Bob is the Soc who assaulted him. Bob and the other Socs grab Ponyboy and begin to drown him in a fountain. Johnny pulls out a switchblade and kills Bob to save Ponyboy.

When Ponyboy comes to, he and Johnny go to Dally for help. Dally tells them to hide out in an abandoned church in Windrixville. He gives them some money and a gun and tells them that he will visit as soon as it is safe. Ponyboy and Johnny disguise themselves by cutting their hair short and bleaching Ponyboy’s blond. They pass their time in Windrixville by playing cards and reading Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936).

Dally arrives nearly a week later and reports that a rumble is being planned between the Greasers and the Socs. Cherry Valance is spying for the Greasers. She has told Dally that she will testify that the Socs were drunk and looking for a fight and that the boys must have fought back in self-defense. When Johnny hears Dally’s news, he decides that he and Ponyboy should go back to Tulsa and turn themselves in. They cannot run forever, he reasons, and it is not fair to keep Darry and Soda worrying about Ponyboy. Dally tries to talk Johnny out of returning because he does not want Johnny to end up in jail and become hardened by it: Dally does not want Johnny to end up like him.

The three are heading back home, when they notice that the church is on fire. Ponyboy jumps out of Dally’s car to investigate. A group of kids on a school picnic and their teachers are outside the church, waiting for firemen to arrive. One of the teachers realizes that some of the kids are missing. They hear faint screams coming from inside the church. Ponyboy runs into the burning building, followed by Johnny and Dally. Together, they manage to rescue the children trapped inside. Dally pulls Ponyboy out of the church just before the roof collapses. Ponyboy passes out. When he comes to, he learns that a large timber fell on Johnny and broke his back. Dally escaped with a severely burned arm but is otherwise all right. Ponyboy also learns that they are being lauded as heroes, which strikes him as funny since he is used to being called a “punk” or a “hood.”

Johnny dies before the rumble. Dally cannot cope with Johnny’s death. While the rest of the gang fights the Socs and wins, Dally robs a grocery store. He pulls a gun on the police who are pursuing him and is shot to death while his friends look on. Ponyboy is traumatized by his experiences and suffers a break with reality. He thinks that he is the one who killed Bob and that Johnny is still alive.

At a court hearing, the judge acquits Ponyboy based on Randy and Cherry’s testimony. Ponyboy returns to school but has a hard time readjusting to “normal” life. His grades drop. Ponyboy’s English teacher knows he is capable of doing better and offers him a chance to improve his grade by writing an essay for extra credit. Ponyboy chooses to write an essay telling the Greasers’ side of the story. He opens the essay with the first sentence of the novel, “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.” Ponyboy’s essay is the novel, The Outsiders.

In Popular Culture

The Outsiders remained popular in the decades after its publication; despite controversy at the time of its release, as well as later attempts to ban the book in some schools due to its controversial content, the novel also came to be widely included in school curricula in the United States. By 2017, fifty years after its publication, the novel had sold at least fifteen million copies.

Due to its popularity, the novel was also adapted for other media a number of times. In 1983 director Francis Ford Coppola adapted the book into a film, The Outsiders, which helped launch the acting careers of a number of its young stars, including Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe. The film was a critical and commercial success. A stage adaptation of The Outsiders premiered on Broadway in 2024 and won a Tony Award for best musical.

Bibliography

Carratello, John, and Patty Carratello. A Guide for Using “The Outsiders” in the Classroom. Westminster, Calif.: Teacher Created Materials, 2001.

Daly, Jay. Presenting S. E. Hinton. Twayne, 1989.

Eby, Margaret. "Why 'The Outsiders' Still Matters." Rolling Stone, 26 Apr. 2017, www.rollingstone.com/feature/why-the-outsiders-still-matters-50-years-later-194014/. Accessed 1 Jul. 2024.

Howard, Todd. Understanding “The Outsiders.” Lucent Books, 2001.

Krischer, Harley. "Why ‘The Outsiders’ Lives On: A Teenage Novel Turns 50." The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/books/the-outsiders-s-e-hinton-book.html. Accessed 1 Jul. 2024.

"The Outsiders." Tony Awards, 2024, www.tonyawards.com/shows/the-outsiders/. Accessed 1 Jul. 2024.

Wilson, Antoine. The Library of Author Biographies: S. E. Hinton. Rosen, 2003.