The Outsiders 565Harry finds the naked figures of Hermine and Pablo
asleep after a bout of lovemaking. He notices a
bruise beneath Hermine’s left breast that shows the
imprint of Pablo’s “beautiful, gleaming teeth” and
he plunges a knife to the hilt into the bruise in a fit
of jealousy: “Before she had ever been mine, I had
killed my love.” Harry clearly has not yet learned
how to channel his aggressive and violent impulses
properly. Whereas some critics have interpreted the
novel’s ending as pessimistic and considered Harry
Haller’s attempts to explore the sexual as well as
violent urges of his personality ultimately a failure,
Hermann Hesse himself stressed that he conceived
Steppenwolf not as the portrait of a man who is in
despair but rather as that of a believer. He stated
that the story does not lead to death and destruction
but rather to healing. Perhaps one can take a clue
from the fictional editor of the book who asserts
that, even though Harry Haller’s experiences greatly
upset the outsider and caused him to leave town
precipitously, he is convinced that the Steppenwolf
did not commit suicide.
Karl Stegner
HinTon, S. E. The Outsiders (1967)
The Outsiders introduces a group of friends in the
1950s who live on the poor side of town and have
to deal with all of the prejudices and realities of
poverty. Ponyboy Curtis is the 14-year-old narrator
of this story. While he is the youngest of his broth-
ers, as well as the youngest of all of the friends with
whom they associate, he is also the storyteller, both
literally and figuratively, and he sees what happens
around him more clearly than most of the other
characters are able to do.
At the beginning of the story, Ponyboy can see
the world only from his own perspective. He believes
his oldest brother doesn’t like him, and is mean to
him as a result. He believes that the Socs, the rich
kids, have no problems because they have money.
Over the course of the novel, he realizes that his
oldest brother is strict with him because he cares so
much about Ponyboy and couldn’t bear to lose him.
Also, he befriends Cherry, a Soc girl, and begins to
understand that “things are tough all over.” Money
doesn’t buy happiness, love, or a sense of personal
security. Unfortunately his journey to these realiza-
tions (one could say his journey toward maturity or
adulthood) includes violence and heartbreak. Two
of his good friends are killed during the story, and
he watches several other characters deal with less
tragic, but still painful, changes. This is a narrative of
growth, with the focus on the growing pains.
Kathleen McDonaldThe american dream in The Outsiders
The debate over whether anyone can achieve his or
her American dream has raged since long before the
term was coined in 1913, and continues in full force
today. Hinton’s The Outsiders shows how a group
of people whose birth was not fortuitous, who had
to fight for every scrap that they had. Their biggest
fight comes when they have to face people who can
not believe that these greasers have the ability to
achieve anything worthwhile, much less the respect
to appreciate it if they did.
The two groups in this novel seem to divide on
lines of socioeconomic status. The Socs have every
material advantage that money and status can pro-
vide; the greasers are constantly struggling simply to
make ends meet. However, our narrator realizes that
this line is porous and allows for movement back
and forth. Ponyboy notes that “the only thing that
keeps Darry from bein’ a Soc is us.” When Cherry
and Ponyboy discuss their mutual appreciation of
watching sunsets, it leads Ponyboy to a realization:
“Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren’t
so different.”
Yet for these characters, this division is very real.
Darry, the oldest brother, can not afford to go to
college, even with an athletic scholarship. Sodapop,
the middle brother, has dropped out of high school
to work and help keep the family together after
their parents died. It is easy to see how the lack of
money and goods has contributed to the problems of
the greasers; however, Hinton shows how the exact
opposite situation contributed to the destruction of
the Socs. Cherry spells out this situation in her first
conversation with Ponyboy:You greasers have a different set of values. . . .
We’re sophisticated—cool to the point
of not feeling anything. Nothing is real to