The Outsiders, centers on two social classes represented by gangs. The Socs (pronounced soshes) are the rich mean kids of town, while the Greasers are the poor kids, outsiders to the community, who seem dirty, but just try to survive. Ponyboy Curtis narrates this novel, he is a sweet smart and thoughtful Greaser who watches sunsets and sees the soft side of the “criminal” Greasers. The story starts when Bob, a Soc tries to kill Ponyboy and is in turn killed by Johnny, a gentle Greaser traumatized by Socs. They flee to the suburbs with the help of Dallas, a hardened Greaser, where Johnny is severely injured trying to rescue kids from a burning church. With one Soc dead and a Greaser almost, can the two rival gangs heal each other, themselves and prove their stereotypes wrong?
The Outsiders connects to the continuous Black Lives Matter movement. The Greasers are stereotyped as uneducated hoods who can never change, like the African-American men who are stereotyped as criminals and killed by police. It took many deaths to force these two gangs to realize that despite stereotyped social classes we are all humans who face problems and see sunsets. This seems like a sad, but good ending for a book and a bittersweet ending for mankind. Readers who love a good adventure full of action and drama will rush through this book. This book is still always reserved for the hearts of thoughtful readers who connect on an emotional level with characters so real they can’t be called realistic. The Outsiders, is for anyone big and small, of any color, any class, but especially those who watches sunsets.
No comments:
Post a Comment