Outsiders

3 Pages 797 Words

Author: S. E. Hinton

Title: The Outsiders

Date of publication: 1967

Plot synopsis: The Outsiders is a story about a controversy between two groups in a town: the Greasers, the poor "tough guys" from the east side of town, and the Socials, or Socs, the richer group from the west side of town. The narrator of the story is Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year-old orphan who lives with his two older brothers, Soda and Darry. His parents were killed by a car crash years ago. He is a good athlete and student, but is not treated the same as the richer students at his school. He knows this is because of his juvenile delinquent appearance. Ponyboy has long hair that he greases back, a symbol of him being in the gang.
Ponyboy is not happy with his situation: Darry is way too protective of him and he is always afraid of a Soc jumping him. One night Pony and Johnny are cornered in a park by a group of drunken Socs. One of the Socs tries to drown Pony. He goes unconscious and when he wakes up, he sees that Johnny has killed Bob, one of the Socs.
The two boys go to their friend Dally and he gives them money and directions to a church. There they hide out for a week, and then Dally comes to find them. After eating at Dairy Queen, they return to the church and see that it has caught fire. A group of schoolchildren are stuck in the burning building. Pony and Johnny jump in to save the children. Pony gets out relatively fine but Johnny badly burnt.
In the newspaper, the boys are mentioned as heroes, even though they are still wanted for murder. Pony is fine, but Johnny is badly hurt and he will never walk again, if he even lives. Soon after, the Greasers fight the Socs. The Greasers win, and when Dally and Pony go to tell Johnny that they won, he dies during their visit. Dally is destroyed by this, and runs off. Later he calls Pony's house to tell him that he robbed a store and is being chased by the cops. They go to meet him, and see him shot down a...