Tragedy In Hinton's The Outsiders

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In The Outsiders, Ponyboy always feels different from everybody else. Cherry Valence says she feels different from everybody else, and I believe Johnny says so too, but if not he definitely acts as one. Hinton says in the Q and A in the back of her book that she wrote it to relate to teenagers. I would say that almost all teenagers feel like outsiders, for different reasons, and Hinton wanted to capture what went through a teenagers minds when tragedy happens, or when anything happens, really, and tell people why all teens feel like outsiders. Suicide is a big problem for teenagers, and reasons can be unknown sometimes, but Hinton being a teen at the time of writing this book knew what went through the kids minds. Dally had just lost the only person he loved, Johnny. Dally couldn’t …show more content…
Dally is an outsider because he’s supposed to be as tough as nails, but really he’s weak, and Johnny was the only thing keeping him together, but he couldn’t tell anybody that. Ponyboy is probably the biggest outsider of them all, he watches sunsets, he reads, he’s smart, and he only fights out of self defense. Everyone in his gang wouldn’t be caught dead watching a sunset, they’re witty but far from smart, and they pick fights when they’re bored. Cherry Valence is an outsider because she doesn’t like doing the things that most Socs do. She feels like the only person who doesn’t like beer blasts, or getting drunk, or egging houses, or whatever else the Socs did. Sodapop is a drop out. Darry had to grow up too fast. Two-Bit couldn’t take anything seriously. Hinton wants teens to know that everyone is an outsider, which ironically if we’re all outsiders then we aren’t outsiders, right? If everyone is different by being different then we’re all the same by being not the