Hinton, S.E. (1989). The Outsiders.New York: Dell
S.E. Hinton's novel of class conflict, choice and determination, set in 1950s Oklahoma, creats empathy for characters who live on the periphery of society. Hinton's protagonist, Ponyboy, along with his fellow "gang" members, including Two-bit, Dally, Darry and Johnny, are are "greasers". Outwardly, they are an unsavory lot. They wear their hair long and greasy, wear jeans , t-shirts and, if they can eat chocolate cake and soda for breakfast, live in unfashionable homes in poor neighbourhoods and are generally doomed to poor-paying blue-coloured jobs. THey do little to endure themselves to those who are not of their group. FOr instance, at the drive-in movie, they "introduce" themselves to some girls through uncouth behaviour.
The average greaser's nemesis is the "soc". The soc comes from a preiveleges backround, wears fashionable clothing and often enjoys his or her parents' indulgence.
Hinton, through a series of plot elements, presents the greasers as the misunderstood heroes of the book. For instance, Johnny, the least aggressive of the greasers, kills a soc. However, the killing is clearly presents as a case of self-defense. Further, we understand that Johnny had previously been savagely beaten by the very same soc who, on this occassion, without question, had intended to kill Johnny. Johnny later suffers fatal wonds when he rescues a group of children from a burning church- the same building in which he and Ponyboy had been hiding out subsequent to the killing of Bob.
The toughest greaser also is portaryed sympathetically. Even when Dally ends up being shot by the police after he attempted armed robbery, Dally seems more a tragic than a threatening figure. Ponyboy reveals that Dally 's gun did not hold and bullets; Dally desperate act is attributed to his inability to cope with Johnny's death.
Throughout the book, the greasers are portrayed as loyal and misunderstood, imbued with an anger and despait that has been etched upon their psyches through years of abuse and neglect.
Desite this, Johnny and Ponyboy are able to maintain a grasp upon their humanity. Johnny pays with his life. Ponyboy's fate is more promising. His nervous collapse at the end of the novel galvanizes the resolve of the rest of the greasers. They vow to break the cycle wherein their fate seems pre-determined if not for their own sake, then for Ponyboy's. "Don't get tough," Two-Bit urges Pony, "You're not like the rest of us and don't try to be (Hinton 1989, p. 152).&qout; Soda reminds him, "I you don't have anything, you end up like Dallas... and I don't mean dead, eather (Hinton 1989, p. 152)."
Where Hinton's vision lacks courage is in her portrayal of the greasers as societal victims who lack genuine flaws. Certainly the greasers keep irregular hours, watch too much television, smoke and have poor diets, but they do not have serious faults. Any faults can be readily attributes to their circumstances and to the inequitable political and social systems that subjugate them. Hinton's novel whould have been more of an achevement had she been able to generate empathy for the members of an underclass who are not simply "noble savages". It is easy to accept the romantic portrayal of a marginalized class of people; it is difficult to accept a cold, accurate rendering of the same group, espacally when the group's attitudes, values and behaviours are profoundly different from those of the reader.
Still, Hinton's work, while it is often sentimental, is also also sensitive and even poetic. We can hear Hinton herself speaking through Ponyboy when he laments, "I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities, boys with blick eyes who jump at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys who maybe watch sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better (Hinton 1989, P. 155)."
Hinton's gift to her reader is the knowledge that they live there still.
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