In the novel The Outsiders by S.E.

Hinton, the story of two dissident groups of teenagers

from conflicting sides of the town and of the world itself delineates the utterance, “An individual
cannot be represented and discriminated by their social class or the society’s fixed and
preconceived notion about them” through a collection of consequential conjunctures that
suspended the cycle of violence between them. The
In the beginning, Ponyboy is identified as a divergence amongst his crew. The use of
rhetorical questions in his mind when he asks “What kind of world is it where all I have to be
proud of is a reputation for being a hood, and greasy hair? I don’t want to be a hood, but even if I
don’t steal things and mug people and get boozed up, I’m marked lousy. Why should I be proud
of it? Why should I even pretend to be proud of it?” (Hinton 157). In other words, Ponyboy
deeply understood the suppositions of being a greaser and being labeled as society’s underclass.
Nevertheless, unlike his gang who never bothered to make a change or question the norms that
lay upon them, Ponyboy kept on questioning the reasons behind this injudicious treatment
against his people. In effect, he develops a comprehension of individualism, and he made sure
Randy acknowledged it when he said “ 'Greaser' didn't have anything to do with it. My buddy
over there wouldn't have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of
yours wouldn't have. It's the individual." (Hinton 138). Under those circumstances, he continues
to attain the rationales why his gang members exemplify as an individual: how Dally was so
apathetic and reckless to the world only because of how he’d despaired on people for how they
treated him as a child. Whither Darry was bitter and aggrieved to life and fitfully to him being
that Darry had relinquished in forbearance more than he can in a lifetime and needed to affirm it
was paying off for his brothers. And how Johnny had embraced life contrastingly from Dally and
had retained a little light of hope within him of a finer life just to keep the gold within him alive.
Ultimately, they all vary in merits and ideals, perceiving and deciding by their mindset,
regardless of the term greaser.
Correspondingly, the wealthy title ‘Socs’ had masked a group of boys’ struggles to
mature in goodwill due to an ambiguous and misleading environment. As a ‘Soc’, or the upper
class of rich circle kids, the thought of their enemies on the East side doing anything morally
dignified never occurred to them. In their conversation after the fire incident, Randy stated to
Ponyboy that “[he] would never have believed a greaser could pull something like that" (Hinton
138). Indeed, Greasers were denominated as ‘hoods’; teenage gangs that spread about burgling
places and rebelling the streets with their gang fights. Along the same lines, Socs, the
antagonists, were the opulent kids who had the right upon their prosperity to carry off all that
they wanted to. For one thing, both sides never saw or sought the exertion to see the good in one
another; or even endeavoured apprehension in a contrasting perspective. Ponyboy, on the
contrary, had not been as blinded by these conceptions as others. In fact, he deeply discerned that
he was somewhat different from his gang: his taste in literature and films and his lack of
understanding over the violent conflicts in his surroundings. Likewise, he never fully
comprehended his position as a greaser yet being that it was his life and his people, he aimed
hard to be like them. Hence why Johnny remarked the concern in his letter to Ponyboy “And
don't be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you
want. There's still lots of good in the world” (Hinton 211). With this in mind, Johnny wanted
Ponyboy to grasp that the appellation ‘Greasers’ had nothing on him. In no way was he obligated
to favor violence or resent the world. Knowing that Ponyboy had always sought for better
reasons from the world; a better way to do things, a better way to live, Johnny had reminded him
of the purpose he could have in life before his own came to an end.
In the end, Ponyboy finally ascertained his purpose amidst this cycle of violence and
misconceptions. He stated that “[He] could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the
wrong sides of cities, boys with black eyes who jumped at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys
who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better. [He]could see
boys going down under street lights because they were mean and tough and hated the world, and
it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it, and they wouldn't believe you if you
did.” (Hinton 211). Notably, he now digested the fact that greasers are not at fault for being born
on the wrong side of the tracks, for becoming bitter and cold in fear of the violence in the world,
and for at least once having hoped for better good in the world. In the same way, Socs like Bob
was but a victim of poor judgment and guidance. Owing to all they ever wanted was “To have
somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give [them] something solid to stand on" (Hinton
139). They were never taught the right way to face life and were never given any limits of
morality. Moreover, their people had failed not only to care for them but to listen to them and
understand the confusion in their minds; growing up and not being able to see what is right and
what is wrong. None of these boys should have to turn a dark side against the world because of
what people classify them as and how hopeless it seems to be born under a title that no one
deems good. For this reason, Ponyboy wanted to tell them to stay gold and look for the better and
the good in life regardless of others’ presumptions. Just as the author’s use of allusion that
appears during Johnny’s and Ponyboy’s escape says: “So dawn goes down today, Nothing gold
can stay" (Hinton 94). Expressly, Johnny had taken Robert Frost’s poem to heart and delivered
their significance to Ponyboy, denoting his love for sunsets as the inestimable values of life.
Keep on going by the day to see the dawn in the final because that’s the gold in life, the precious
things are the ones that can never stay.
As can be seen, none of the characters had benefited from stereotypes and classification
of one another. The act of deeming a person purely by their social class or title only produces the
principles of prejudice and bias in one’s perspective; which had led the greasers and socs into a
cruel cycle of violence. Henceforth, they learn the lesson that an individual can never be
emblematized by a simple classification that came from a single perspective, and therefore the
power of an individual is dependent on one’s definite virtues and principles in life.