Comparing The Outsiders 'And On The Sidewalk Bleeding'

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Unless you are living through it in reality, looking at life from other people's perspective is quite hard to imagine. There are many stories that can take people deep into others lives. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, “On The Sidewalk Bleeding” by Evan Hunter, or “Why Weren’t You His Friends?” by Bob Greene, are all examples of stories where people make choices that lead them to consequences. The Outsiders is a novel about two sides, the rich and the poor, and it is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1965. The short story known as, “On The Sidewalk Bleeding” is about a teenage boy who is part of a very loathed gang. Another anecdote “Why Weren’t You His Friends?” is on the subject of a teenager at Oak Street Middle School in Burlington, Iowa who is bullied …show more content…
Hinton about two classes in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1965. The main character of the story is a fourteen-year-old male named Ponyboy. Along with the rest of his confidants, Pony is part of a lower class gang named The Greasers. Throughout the story one of the characters, Johnny, kills someone from the higher class gang, The Socs, which leads to Johnny and Pony running away. While on the run they try to rescue a group of kids from a fire that they may have started which results in Johnny being severely burned. Risking his life to save others, Johnny does not survive. “Dally raised the gun, and I thought: You blasted fool. They don't know you're only bluffing. And even as the policemen's guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted”(Hinton 131). Dally cannot take Johnny dying so he leads the cops into thinking he is clutching a gun in the palms of his hand and there the cops mistake it as a threat and take him down. Pony and Curtis are similar in how they are both bullied by upper-class gangs both mentally and physically, as well as Pony and Andy whom both are abused by what they look like on the outside and because of their labels. Pony and Curtis differentiate because Curtis commits suicide as a cause of being bullied, but Pony is tougher and is bullied more physically and never thinks once of ending his life. Andy and Pony, however, are different because Andy is stabbed to death and no one cares but if Pony were hurt by a fiend his friends would protect