The Outsiders

Today was a very short work day for me, so I came home and took a nap. I was tired because last night I was trying to clean up my desk by putting some books away, but I ended up reading The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. I was going to put it back on the shelf because it was in a pile of books to read and had sat on my desk for probably two weeks. I glanced at the first page and before I knew it I was 20 pages in and invested. It's such a great book. I could not put it down and finished reading around 3 in the morning. I remember being hooked the first time and reading it in one sitting. I don't do that very often, sadly.

A brief plot overview: Ponyboy is a greaser, a kind of rough, social outcast, Juvenile Delinquent type from the poor side of town. He lives with his two older brothers Sodapop and Darry, who have to work to keep the family together because their parents died in a car crash. They are part of a kind of gang, but they aren't violent like some of the other gangs. The greasers clash with the Socs (socials) who are upper class rich kids who frequently jump greasers for fun.
Ponyboy and his friend Johnny are jumped after befriending some Soc girls at a movie. Johnny stabs and kills a Soc boy, Bob. With help from Dallas, the toughest member of their group, they run away to hide from the police. Later, the old church where they were hiding catches on fire with some children trapped inside. Ponyboy and Johnny rescue them, but a beam falls on Johnny and he breaks his back.
Cherry, one of the Soc girls says she will testify that Bob was drunk the night he was killed and that it was self defense. After Bob's death, there was a rumble between the Socs and the greasers, and the greasers won. Ponyboy and Dallas visit Johnny in the hospital, who dies. Dallas runs out and robs a grocery store at gunpoint and is killed by the police.
Ponyboy reflects on what it means to grow up and that despite our differences, people are the same all over. "Maybe the two worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset."

In style and message, The Outsiders reminds me a lot of The Catcher in the Rye, another of my favorite books. Seeing the characters mature and having a growing awareness of the complexities of the world around them, and hearing their struggle to find meaning and to understand others and fight for some kind of morality are the things that make these books great. Same goes for a movie like Rebel without a Cause. More popular movies on teen angst like The Breakfast Club and the other Brat Pack movies work this way, too.

I hope to think more about the themes of The Outsiders. It's a book that really challenges me to reevaluate my values, morals, and my beliefs about others. It makes me wonder, why do humans feel a need to dominate others that they deem "below them"? Times have changed since the book was written in 1967, but social cliques are perhaps even more complex.

I cannot remotely understand why jumping another person would be fun. Sure, we could delve into the world of psychology. Maybe, like Bob, we somehow yearn for limits and so we continue to push the boundaries. Of course appearances and background biases are still incredibly hard to overcome, so maybe people feel above the law. Perhaps genetically we still are hunter-gatherers and in the environment of school the food chain plays itself out socially, where the strongest will survive. Our need for acceptance is a huge factor. For some reason, exclusivity equates to quality. A social group is only as 'good' as its members, so they feel the need to 'keep out the rabble' so to speak. And when you are part of a high social group like the prom queen type girls of high school, I'm sure it feels good in a way to reject others as not being 'good enough.' They have a sense of power and desirability.

But why do we have trouble looking at a person and seeing them for what they are: another human being with feelings and hopes and dreams just like ourselves? Sure, practically it's impossible to really be friends with everyone you meet. There aren't enough hours in the day. It's simple opportunity cost: I can spend my time with person X or person Y but not both. But what gives us the right to attack one another? To label another person and judge their life without knowing anything about them?

Life is not perfect; it's a daily struggle. "Things are rough all over."
I guess the only thing to do is to have faith that there is more to this world than appearances, hope that the world is filled with more good people than bad, and love one another.