The Outsiders

“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.” This quote is the first and the last line of the book The Outsiders. From the first time reading this line to the last, the meaning becomes increasingly different and more meaningful. S.E. Hinton is a talented author who writes about the socioeconomic status between the working class known as the greasers and the upper class known as the Soc. The story follows Ponyboy talks about his family and friends. When his older brother slaps him, he runs to the park with his friend Johnny. They get jumped by a group of Socs. Johnny stabs and kills one of the boys who is attempting to drown Pony in a fountain, afraid of the law they seek advice from Dallas, who tells them to hide out in an abandoned church and gives them a gun. They hide out, cutting their hair reading gone with the wind until Dallas shows up days later telling them the incident has raised tension between the two gangs. Johnny decided to turn himself in, but before they go back, the church catches on fire with some school kids inside. The boys rescue the children, but a part of the church falls and hurts Johnny in the process. They get back to town, and they are now delinquents turned hero’s for saving the children. The two gangs have a rumble to solve to end the end of their feud between opposing sides when Pony and Dallas go to the hospital to tell Johnny he tells Pony to sty golden and dies. Dallas, stricken with grief and anger, runs off robs a store and gets himself killed by threatening cops with an unloaded gun. Pony feels the loss of his friends, and his grades suffer. He writes a theme for his English that starts “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.” S.E. Hinton was only fifteen when she started writing The Outsiders, and it wasn’t the stereotypical book that I would expect a girl to write. I was impressed the first time reading this book. The way she was able to write about things that I knew nothing about something I felt she didn’t know much about either. As a teenager, I was encouraged to know that this amazing author was my age when she wrote this fantastic book that we were reading in our classroom. It was a story that appealed to a wide range of people from all walks of life, and even the author was impressive in her own right. I feel that this book shows the youth that anything is possible. That no matter what life throws at you things can always get better you can do what you want if you put your mind to it. " You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world." Ponyboy if effected by the events in his life just as all of us are its what you do with those experiences that make you into who you are.