The Outsider

It has now been 54 years since an 18-year-old writer from Tulsa Oklahoma named Susan Eloise Hinton introduced us to Ponyboy, Sodapop, Darry, Johnny, Dallas, Two-Bit and Cherry. The vivid and iconic main characters that occupy her 1967 debut novel The Outsiders. Releasing the book under the name S.E Hinton as her publisher suggested that she use her initials instead of her feminine given names so that the very first male book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female. The novel was surely not dismissed it became an enormous success and its legend has grown every year especially with young readers. It was a group of these young readers at a school in Fresno, California who were such fans of the novel even three decades after its release that they wrote a letter to The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola asking him to consider turning the book into a motion picture. Coppola helmed a movie version of The Outsiders in 1984. The original film release was however somewhat of a disappointment to the young fans of the book because the movie version left out a lot of what was contained in the Novel as Coppola took the scissors and severely edited the movie to a point where even he wasn’t happy with it. Set in Hinton’s hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The story of The Outsiders follows mostly male characters written from the perspective a female writer. A very young female writer as Hinton began authoring the Novel when she was just 15 years old. This making the Novel and the story even more interesting than it might be from a male perspective. There may have been a lot of that which was so appealing in the book that was lost in translation in the film. The film and screen adaptation were done by a man, and a man noted for making movies about macho characters who operated on the fringes of society and on the criminal line. If there is not a sensitivity running throughout the book The Outsiders, then there is certainly a recognition of sensitivity and even femininity. As the male characters behave in a masculine and even sometimes a felonious way there seems to always be a judgement of them. An acknowledgment of their actions hanging somewhere just above them in the vapors. The characters are naturally masculine but also inhabit a world where machismo is their armor ratcheting their overt manliness to the umpteenth degree. While the boys in The Outsiders world is often bleak and hopeless an alternative world constantly seems to be available to them somewhere in the mist if they would only break off and take one of these exits. The alternatives seem to be unspoken and provided by Hinton herself as she relays the story. The main character and voice of The Outsiders Ponyboy Curtis takes one of these alternate roads by reading books like Gone With The Wind and by exploring his own efforts as a writer as the novel begins with Ponyboy writing and recalling the story that we’re being told. Ponyboy is in danger of being thought of as not masculine enough by taking this alterative road and just by acknowledging any reasons as to why what is happening in his life might be happening. Self-analysis is a danger in his world. Sensitivity is a weakness. His older brother Daryl is the manliness he is supposed to strive too, Ponyboy is supposed to be hard and tough like Daryl who’s big and roofs houses all day. But this divide comes between the brothers as Ponyboy continues to be pulled away toward these alternate paths. Ponyboy’s other brother Soda Pop expresses some of this sensitivity yet only to Ponyboy and Ponyboy only to him and sometimes his best friend in the book Johnny Cade. The character of Sodapop was greatly cut out of the original release of the film possibly for that reason. This is another significant difference between Hinton telling the story and the story in Coppola’s control. Hinton is examining others and possible their motives and looking for any outright judgment on their behavior. Johnny Cade as much as announces this out loud toward the end of the story right before his death that he knows is coming. Johnny has been in danger and misery all through his life from him avoiding examining his life but other as well including his parents and all of his friends. Ironically Johnny examining his actions is what directly leads to him to being put into his early deathbed as Johnny doesn’t think about whether he should run into a burning church to possibly save some children who may burn if he doesn’t. He just runs in. This is likely Johnny’s conscience taking over and possibly overreacting because of years of not reacting. By not doing something about a wrong that needs to be corrected or not talking about it. Johnny isn’t about to do nothing. He does the something the moment calls for as he sees the black smoke and flames coming from inside the church as he and Ponyboy and Dallas arrive back at the church they’ve been using as a hideout. Johnny is immediately the first one to jump out of the convertible and run to the church. At this moment Johnny becomes a leader for the first time not a follower like he has previously been all of his life. The main beacon of masculinity and toughness in The Outsiders is the character of Dallas Winston. Part of what makes Dallas strong is he’s isolation from much of the rest of the gang. He even fights with them members of his own set though Dallas is never a leader in the gang. And he doesn’t lead at the moment in the church. He assists helping the children out by standing outside as Johnny and Pony lift the children down to him through a window. If Dallas did examine his life, he might have realized that he isn’t a follower or a leader but in fact a loner. These loner traits and actions pop up in Dallas as Hinton lets us know who he is. These loner traits make Dallas more masculine almost too masculine to get the girl even. As he treats Cherry Valenz as he would one of his male friends. What doesn’t happen within The Outsiders is just as important and impactful was what does. The romance between Cherry and Dallas never happens because Dallas blows it treating Sherry in this way. The entire time we’re running a Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde type scenario in our imaginations while reading about these two characters. But it only exists in the margins of the novel, in the possibilities. Sherry mentions to Ponyboy that she would likely fall in love with Dallas if she ever saw him again. Which she never does. There is an entire star-crossed lover’s potential running through the edges of The Outsiders with a possible love affair between one of the greasers and the socs that never materializes. Dallas needs his isolation and masculinity to play off one another to exist. And his existence as a loner is very clear in his actions. While he helps get the kids out of fire danger Dallas stays outside in the church alone and after Johnny dies, he doesn’t gather around Pony or anyone else for comfort and mourning. He runs off alone and robs a convenient store alone. Dallas is shot by the store owner and runs. He finds a payphone and calls The Curtis house and tells Darry to meet him in the park. By the time the rest of the outsiders reach him it’s too late. The police have caught up with him for his robbery and Dallas pulls his gun and is shot down by the cops. Dallas has finally asked for help but it’s now too late. He crawls through the road while pumped full of lead. One of his friends’ yells “he’s just a kid” this is an illuminating moment as nobody in the Outsiders seems to realize that these Greasers running wild around town are just kids. This moment allows us to realize that they know this but haven’t expressed it out loud until the worst moment in their lives is in front of them as they watch their friend die in the road before they can reach him reminding us that a kid who has lived like a man also has to die like a man. Masculinity. Dallas’ death is a metaphor for the Outsiders as a whole as nobody ever comes to a full moment of realization until it’s too late to make a positive difference. With the one exception being running into the church to save the kids. It’s almost a metaphor for the Outsiders lives. They are helping children be pulled from fire. Something adults never did for them. There are friendships in life that seem a moment away from teetering off the edge and yet somehow end up being stronger than friendships seem to be superior at the time. Generally, today you would probably think of your friends as people who would encourage you to avoid getting involved in a rumble not expecting you to run headfirst into one. The Characters in The Outsiders bond by engaging in this action of a rumble side by side. The rumble portion of the book screams loudly and unmistakably that these are people with not a whole lot to lose. The peak of masculinity is the rumble portion of the book it’s both the anthesis to the feminine portion of the book and it’s flipped narrative. The Masculinity runs headfirst into a confrontation for the sake of friendship and protecting one’s turf. Less the turf of the town as The Outsiders lives in the dumpy area of town and more for the turf of their own masculine treasure and male bond. Sherry Valens is the only main female character and voice within the book, but she doesn’t have these issues. She has made up her mind. As much as she likes and respects Pony Boy and might be attracted to Dallas Winston, she doesn’t have to protect her turf she was given it as a right of birth. It’s hers and Sherry isn’t a dreamer like Pony She’s a realist. If she has any illusions about being Juliet to Dallas’ Romeo, she never acts on them, and she can’t be friends with Ponyboy at the end of the novel. Even though she is a girl It’s a threat to her masculinity not her femininity. She gives Dallas the cold shoulder and throws the cup of coco cola in her face because not doing so is a threat to her masculinty and femininity. When she snubs Ponyboy at School it’s because not doing so is a threat to her masculinity. She is in that instant one of the boys. Cherry is going to go on about her life where she belongs on, here on the south side. She’s not a girl who’s been told her whole life that she needs to hang on to a man and whatever man wants her. She can have any man she wants, and she likely knows this. Sherry is a character who likely graduated high school and went away to college somewhere and didn’t return to Tulsa again. Seemingly being the type of personality who accepts situations the way they are and favors moving onto whatever the future holds rather than holding up residence in the past. In many ways even though she’s a Soc she is an outsider as well. Hinton herself is an Outsider just by being a female and by authoring the Novel. The Outsider is one of the most celebrated Novels ever written and continues to stand the test of time. It was ranked #38 on the American Library Association’s Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999. The book has been banned from some schools and libraries because of the portrayal of gang violence, underage smoking and drinking, strong language/slang, and family dysfunction. If S.E Hinton had in fact turned out to be a man would the author of The Outsiders had been a bigger star than they actually were and would the have been so controversial? Whether it’s S.E or Susan Eloise it’s clear nothing is a threat to Hinton’s masculinity or her femininity. She wrote one of the quintessential books ever written on both subjects.