The Outsiders Classroom Notes

In what ways is it evident that the writer of The Outsiders is, indeed, a female? Give two reasons for your answer. Be specific. If you can not tell whether the writer is a female, give me two reasons why you can not.

-- The novel as a diary
-- The story is a story of “toughening”
-- The story is a story of economic status

I. Greasers
-- Poor
-- Slicked back hair “greasers don’t have anything but their hair”
-- Hoodlum
-- Wrong-side of town
-- Cigarettes hanging from mouths
-- Black leather jackets
-- Tough and tuff

II. Socs
-- Johnny died after the rumble (the Socs lost) and Johnny’s death was metaphorical / a parallel “useless, fighting is no good”
-- When Johnny died so too did Pony’s innocence
-- Pony “I’d rather be hated than pitied”
-- Dallas gets himself shot b/c he can not bear life without Johnny

III. Cherry written with sympathy
-- she did not judge
-- she knew she could fall for (another) a bad boy too (Bob = Dally (Dallas))
-- after talking to Johnny and Pony, she knew that they were not like the others
-- p. 117 “things are rough all over…” She looked at both sides of the world – She was a realist
-- She did not hold a grudge re: Bob’s murder

IV. Johnny
-- Like a scared puppy's eyes that had been kicked too many times”
-- fearful b/c he was jumped
-- the guy with the ring
-- he was not loved at home / parents did not want him there / abusive
-- he preferred when his dad beat him b/c at least he knew he was there
-- the gang was his family / he was the pet / he liked Dallas the best b/c Dallas was an authority figure to him

V. Darry
-- had to grow up fast when parents died in accident (18 when they passed away)
-- “Darry has eyes exactly like frozen ice” – Pony
-- Darry would be a Soc if the gang were not around (Darry was a football player / he seems ashamed of the greaser side)
-- Was the 1^st person in the family to hit Pony (the cause of the novel in essence)

VI. Masculinity in the book
-- Teenager vs. adulthood and the complexities of gender
-- Pony as feminine character (without a family, we would think he would be stereotyped as a tougher character)
-- maybe just a sensitive person and this was the depth of his character (the other characters saw him differently than the readers do)
-- sensitive b/c he read so much
-- Yet, he was the baby of the group, the “honey”
-- he looks up to guys that treat women a certain way, who do not go to school—they are his masculine role models
-- Perhaps he sees the example of the authority figures as a forum for his parents, a way to keep them alive
-- His best friend murdered and Pony walked away from the body
-- He ran into a burning building after children (that is a masculine act)
-- Pony and the sunsets (everyone is handsome (perhaps a neutral term))
-- Soda puts arm around Pony to go to sleep / the stroking of the hair / laying in the lap
-- Johnny Pony are tangled up together in the church (they were cold).
-- Pony has the most dynamic change in the book. The affect of what happened to him with the killing, the reading yet not understanding what he read, his grades began to fall towards the end all do to the loss of his authority figure – “Stay Gold”
-- the names of the characters are not typically associated with ,masculine names
-- innocence, beauty, and purity = Pony and “Stay Gold”

VII. Female Author
-- Arms around brothers = no, but arms around sisters is ok
-- It is stereotypically a dream to have a boy play hero (run into the fire to save kids) for a girl
-- a comment on the forbidden pregnancy
-- descriptive flourishes that are conceived as feminine embellishments