Identity In The Outsiders
The experiences we go through in life help shape our personal identity, they better help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. This thought is explored and investigated in the text, The Outsiders by S.E. Hilton. A coming of age novel where the character encounters the effect of their decisions and experiences both negative and positive circumstances. This is clear from the content as the experience of fleeing to the country, being in a gang, facing violence and poverty can shape the concept we develop about ourselves.
Life experiences helped shape the way the primary character and narrator, Ponyboy Curtis, and his friend, Johnny Cade, distinguish themselves and their place in the world by their exploit in fleeing to the country. …show more content…
The Outsiders is a violent book that includes gang violence, child abuse, stabbings and shootings that drive the action in the story. It shows the impact of living in a place where fear is the dominant emotion among adolescents and where a teenager cannot walk home by themselves because of it. In spite of the fact that Ponyboy dislikes the violence and discrimination in his neighbourhood that surrounds himself and his friends, to him friendly sparring and rumbles between boys is a positive benefit only as long weapons aren’t used. In view of this, he believes that this is the best approach to release the endless supply of energy and restrained aggression. In this quote, “A fair fight isn’t rough. Blades are rough. So are chains and heaters and pool sticks and rumbles. Skin fighting isn’t rough. It blows off steam better than anything”, Ponyboy argues that fair fights is a sport that benefits energetic boys. But through the more brutality of events that occur in the book, Pony’s musings start to change, “I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities...who jumped at their own shadows. I could see boys going down under street lights...and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it”. At that point Pony has a surge of understanding, “It was too vast a problem to be just a personal thing. There should
Life experiences helped shape the way the primary character and narrator, Ponyboy Curtis, and his friend, Johnny Cade, distinguish themselves and their place in the world by their exploit in fleeing to the country. …show more content…
The Outsiders is a violent book that includes gang violence, child abuse, stabbings and shootings that drive the action in the story. It shows the impact of living in a place where fear is the dominant emotion among adolescents and where a teenager cannot walk home by themselves because of it. In spite of the fact that Ponyboy dislikes the violence and discrimination in his neighbourhood that surrounds himself and his friends, to him friendly sparring and rumbles between boys is a positive benefit only as long weapons aren’t used. In view of this, he believes that this is the best approach to release the endless supply of energy and restrained aggression. In this quote, “A fair fight isn’t rough. Blades are rough. So are chains and heaters and pool sticks and rumbles. Skin fighting isn’t rough. It blows off steam better than anything”, Ponyboy argues that fair fights is a sport that benefits energetic boys. But through the more brutality of events that occur in the book, Pony’s musings start to change, “I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities...who jumped at their own shadows. I could see boys going down under street lights...and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it”. At that point Pony has a surge of understanding, “It was too vast a problem to be just a personal thing. There should