The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

A detailed Summary of The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

S.E. Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At the age of sixteen she wrote her

First novel, The Outsiders. I t was this book that allowed Hinton to attend the University

Of Tulsa. While attending the University of Tulsa, Hinton fell in love and married David

Inhofe just before graduating from the University of Tulsa in 1970.

Hinton started her writing career at the early age of sixteen. She wrote part of The

Outsiders for a school project and her teacher was so impressed that she pushed Hinton to

write more, which led to her final copy of The Outsiders. Her books received many

rewards and honors. That Was Then, This Is Now was chosen as a notable book by the

American Library Association. The Outsiders was chosen by the New York Herald

Tribune as one of the best teen-age books for 1967, and received the Media & Methods

Maxi Award in 1975. Both books were selected as Honor Books in the Chicago Tribune

Book World's Children's Spring Book Festival.

Hinton enjoyed reading books as an adolescent, but was dismayed to find only a

small segment of a teen-ager's life depicted in literature. To remedy this oversight, the

The fictional novel is set in the moderate-sized city of Tulsa, Oklahoma in the late 1960s. Ponyboy, the main character, lives with his brothers as a greaser. One day Ponyboy and Johnny, Ponyboy's best friend, get jumped by a group of Socs. The Socs start to drown Ponyboy in a fountain. Johnny, realizing they might kill Ponyboy, retaliates and kills Bob, one of the Socs with his switchblade. Johnny and Ponyboy run to a fellow Greaser, Dally, who is always in trouble with the law. Dally helps them by giving them some money, a gun, and a place to hide. They hide in a church outside of town for a week until Dally says it's okay to come out. They go out to eat and when they get back to the church they find it burning. When they see that there are kids inside and their cigarettes could have started the fire, they run inside to save the kids. Johnny and Dally are hurt in the fire and taken to the hospital. They are hailed as heroes in the local paper. Dally breaks out of the hospital to fight in a rumble against the Socs. While the Greasers beat the Socs, Johnny dies in the hospital. When Dally finds out he goes out and robs a grocery store. When the cops pull up he pulls out an empty gun so the cops shoot him.

"One major flaw [in The Outsiders] is that the book is written with self-indulgence, and could profitably have been cut. Apart from this, even the over- didacticism of its first person narrative-it is as didactic as modern pop songs-comes off the page with such absorbed conviction, such persuasive truth and emotional power that one accepts it. The story has humor, passion, tenderness, intelligence, action a-plenty and, best of all, compassion" (CLC vol.30 204). I agree with the last sentence. The Outsiders truly has all of those effects. However, I do not agree with the statement that the story was written with self-indulgence. Miss Hinton wrote the book based on the every day life of teenagers in the 1960s. I think we all know that the lower class people were picked on and made fun of in the 60s. Some major issues would have been race, gender, religion, and monthly income. The part that says that the first person narrative is as didactic or informative as modern pop songs is such an ill-advised statement. The book is based on her every day

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Approximate Word count = 1536
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English