Author: AMARIS

I’ve always been very hesitant when it comes to reading books, I never really enjoyed them. When it comes to reading books if I am being honest I have never read any book from start to finish. I would use Smoop or Sparknotes (my bad). Except something changed this year I’m not sure why but even before The Outsiders, I sorta kinda began enjoying reading the books. It all started with Brave New World, there was soothing about being given a book that actually interested me, that made me enjoy reading. Even after the final test over Brave New World I still had a chapter left and I still finished the book (normally after the final test I would completely forget about the book). Then when I was told we were to pick our own book for this project I got really excited. My buddy Mason always talked about how much he loved The Outsiders, and it really started to interest me. I’ve always loved the movie and people always say the book is way better than the movie. That’s when I decided to go online and order the book.

After I got the book I immediately started reading, I actually finished reading the book in less than twenty-four hours. Which is absolutely insane if I were to pick up a book a year ago it would at least take me eight months. The fact that I finished the book in such a short time made me feel so good about myself. What really blew my mind is how the book was so incredibly similar to the movie. I even read up on it and S. E. Hinton made sure everything was perfect and went along with the book.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and I have faith that I will continue to read books in my free time which I think is really exciting. After taking different viewpoints and learning about critical lenses and stuff really interested me. For the first time in a very very long time, I actually enjoyed reading and doing this project. I feel like it has really helped me in my writing and my English confidence. Making me feel way better about this project and bringing me hope for future projects.

In my own opinion, my feelings towards the book have changed from when I first read it to when I finished the book. In the beginning, I felt remorse towards the Greasers and the automatically hated the Socs, they were hateful and just privileged and picked on the Greasers. The Greasers didn’t deserve that but little did I know that towards the end of the book my feelings towards the Socs would be different. I soon saw their side of the story and that not everything is what it seems. They have problems too.

The way my feelings have changed throughout the book, and how someone from a different time reading this book could have a different opinion too is called a Reader-Response approach to the book. It focuses on how we feel at the end vs. the beginning, and how we relate to the story by using our background, cultural beliefs, or religion. Practically meaning you see the story through your sunglasses. Tying in everything you’ve ever seen or known and relating it to the book. I pretty much put myself into the book and put myself in the character’s shoes, seeing what they see.

For Example, while I’m reading this book I think of myself as Ponyboy and how he feels throughout this journey which although it might seem a little bit exaggerated I can relate to him in many ways. I meanwhile I was growing up there was a short period of time where I was the one who lived in the ruts of the town, having barely enough money to put food on the table let alone a roof over my head, and having to watch your back everywhere you went making sure you didn’t get robbed. That background experience I have leads me to feel deeper into Ponyboy’s character. One more example would be how the Greasers always stay together and they have each other’s backs. In my family, there are a lot of relatives, so there are a lot of cousins and we are all around the same age. We always had each other and like Ponyboy I was one of the youngest.

Poems can bring people closer to their work. The way a poet writes a poem is true beauty and the meanings behind them. In Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Last Performance,” it’s about a woman who plays at her last concert, yet later on, she passes away and the speaker is confused. Towards the end of the poem, the speaker realizes that he somewhat misses her songs and questions how she knew it was going to be her time to go.

In The Outsiders, Ponyboy received a letter from Johnny right before he died. Johnny was someone incredibly close to Ponyboy, and he misses his best friend every day. Johnny writes the letter right before he passes, so in a way, it connects to the poem the same way the lady sang before she died. How did Johnny know he was going to die? Was it the doctors telling him? Or was it his instinct that told him he needed to write the letter while he still has the time? How did the woman know it was her time to go?

“When I returned from the town at nightfall
      Notes continued to pour
As when I had left two hours before.”

Thomas Hardy’s “The Last Performance”

In the quote above the speaker is talking about how the song continues to play in his head even after leaving the town. It had been at least two hours since the woman had stopped playing, yet he still cant stop thinking about her. Sorta like Ponyboy, after Johnny had passed he just couldn’t stop thinking about his best friend. Ponyboy had spent so much time listening to Johnny, thinking about him, and doing all kinds of stuff together. Then just like that he’s gone, and just like the woman plays his last song by writing a letter.

We all know that the narrator is a big part of any story. I mean you see it in almost every movie and even some TV shows. For example, my all-time favorite TV show Gossip Girl revolves around the fact that there is a narrator a.k.a. “Gossip Girl.” She controls the whole story and pops in at any time needed to explain background detail or to tell the audience a big secret. I mean without the narrator the show wouldn’t have any meaning or anything. This is why I believe a story is best told by the narrator and they need to be credible. “Gossip Girl” gets her facts straight from the source or the people who witnessed it, so as the audience we know whatever she says is credible.

Likewise, in The Outsiders, the story is told from the young kid Ponyboy who I mentioned in my earlier post. Ponyboy is really a great narrator like “Gossip Girl,” everything he says is credible, even though there is a big rivalry between the groups he sees both sides of the story. Ponyboy gives us a point of view that can sometimes be rare, he tells the story as he sees it not leaving out any details, so the reader is constantly up to date and never confused. He tells the story from the side of the Greasers because those are the people he runs with, but unlike the other Greasers he actually feels for the Socs.

“Randy looked at me. ‘No you wouldn’t. I’m a Soc. You get a little money and the whole world hates you.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘you hate the whole world’” (Hinton 117).

From this example alone you can tell that Ponyboy feels for Randy the Soc understanding what Cherry meant when she once said, “things are rough all over” (Hinton 48). The overall function of Ponyboy as a narrator is to be the middle man in the story and let the readers know how it really is out in their world.

During one scene of the book Johnny and Ponyboy are walking to a park after hanging out with the Socs girlfriends. While the boys were just chilling there and enjoying the night stars they see a blue mustang roll up. A group of Socs jump out the car and start to beat Johnny and Ponyboy up. The handsome young Soc Bob starts drowning Ponyboy in the fountain that sits in the middle of the park. Ponyboy soon passes out underwater and the next thing he knows he wake sup next toJohnny sitting by the fountain next to a dead body.

“The next thing I knew I was lying on the pavement beside the fountain, coughing water and gasping. I lay there weakly, breathing in air and spitting out water. The wind blasted through my soaked sweatshirt and dripping hair. My teeth clattered unceasingly and I couldn’t stop them. I finally pushed myself up and leaned back against the fountain, the water running down my face. Then I saw Johnny. He was sitting next to me, one elbow on his knee, and starting straight ahead. He was a strange greenish-white, and his eyes were huger than I’d ever seen them.”

“‘I killed him,’ he said slowly. ‘I killed that boy’” (Hinton 56)

After the attack from the Socs Johnny had to kill the boy because if not they would’ve killed Ponyboy. When you think of Johnny you think of him as a “little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times,” (Hinton 11) and the person that would never hurt a fly. This scene brings out an entire new side of Johnny, one that you could never imagine him to be like. I was incredibly shocked when I had read this scene. Not even I could believe it, but when it comes to the boys they’re all brothers and once again would do anything for each other. This is a prime example of how far they would go for each other. Now you can see that the once innocent boys are now about to live the life of a runaway, and they are no longer boys but adult criminals.

Hi! My name is Amaris, I am a senior who was put to the test to make a blog. When I was told to choose a book and do an entire blog over it, I was a little concerned about my grade and mental health. I went ahead and chose The Outsiders, written by S. E. Hinton, I chose this book because I really enjoyed the movie mainly because Patrick Swayze was in it. Usually, I just pretend to read the book and Cliffnote the whole thing, but as I read this book I was actually excited to finish it. For the first time in my life, I finished a whole book in less than twenty-four hours, and that’s what really pushes me to do this project. In the duration of this blog, I hope to learn new things about myself and my book, while seeing where this thing goes.

A little insight into The Outsiders is that the book as a whole is really centered around brotherhood and social differences. In a small town there is a big difference between social classes there are the uptight rich boys the “Socs” and the poor boys who slick their long hair back, work, and live in the hood known as the “Greasers”. One thing you should know about the Greasers is that they all consider themselves brothers. No matter what they will always be there for one another and will do absolutely anything for each other. Since day one the Socs and Greasers have never gotten along hinting their differences. Constantly jumping the other trying to prove who’s the strongest and toughest. The narrator of this story is the youngest of the Greasers called Ponyboy (and yes that is indeed his real name) who is the only kid to successfully make his way through high school with good grades and high hopes. Ponyboy’s best friend is a fellow Greaser called Johnny, both of them are the youngest of the gang so they are practically inseparable. Everything was pretty normal until one day something happens that would change those two boys’ lives forever.