Honor In S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders

What is honor? Honor can mean many things, it can mean to have a high respect from people or to have a specific privilege. But is there truly honor among the lawless? The book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton is about the not so social Greasers and Socs. The Greasers are a gang of brothers that constantly stick together. They protect each other in any way they possibly can... but without following the rules, by breaking the law. The Socs, AKA Socials, are the rich kids that beat up Greasers to pass time. There is no honor among the lawless, The Greasers have proved this by trying not to get caught after committing a crime, killing without thinking, and sneaking into places or stealing. To begin, The Greasers execute many unlawful acts, but one of their main rules is to not get caught after making a poor decision. For example, after Johnny killed Bob, him and Pony ran away instead of going straight to tell the police. Johnny and Pony survived one week in an abandoned church with only Dally, a fellow gang member, knowing. To support this, in the book Dally states “The fuzz won’t be looking for you around here.” (80). This shows that by following one of their own rules, they are breaking the real law. They …show more content…
For example, Pony and Johnny run into the burning church to save children. Even though they think it’s not their fault they still choose to because they care for someone else’s life more than their own. However, all of their good deeds would have never happened. To explain, if Johnny never killed Bob, Pony and Johnny would never have to run away to the church. If they were never in the church, there would be no cigarette fire. Most say to overcome a dishonorable act just commit an honorable act, but since the death of Bob is why the fire happened they would have never been able to accomplish there one honorable

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