73 pages • 2 hours read
S. E. HintonThe Outsiders
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Literature
The motif of literature is prevalent throughout the novel and allows characters, especially Ponyboy, to identify with, and find parallels between, fictional worlds and the real one. Ponyboy first mentions reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations for English class, and the protagonist, Pip, reminds him of the greaser gang: “he reminded me of us—the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn't a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him” (15). Though Ponyboy does not mention Dickens' novel after Chapter 1, his own life lessons parallel Pip's: he gains a new understanding of family; he realizes that one's character is not intrinsic to their social class; and he ultimately yearns for a better life.
The second piece of literature that the novel mentions is Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. The other-worldly lives of the Civil War era provide Ponyboy and Johnny an escape from their bleak situation in Windrixville, but it also provides Ponyboy with a new perspective of Dally. Though lacking the manners and charm of the Southern gentlemen described in the book, Johnny reminds Ponyboy that Dally has gallantly sacrificed himself to save his friends. He does this again when saving the boys from the burning church, and he even “[rides] into sure death” (75) like the gentlemen did.
While the boys are hiding out in the church, Ponyboy remembers Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay when they witness a beautiful sunrise. This prompts an intimate moment between Johnny and Ponyboy, in which they express the significance of their friendship and their ability to share things with each other that they cannot with other members of the gang. Only after Johnny's death, when Ponyboy finds his letter (tucked in his copy of Gone with the Wind), does he realize the impact Frost's words had on his friend. During his final days alive, Johnny interpreted the poem’s meaning: “you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day” (178). Life on the East side has forced many of the boys to grow up faster than they should, hardening them against the world. Johnny's encouragement for Ponyboy to “stay gold” reminds him to see the beauty and good in life and furthers his ambition to create a better future for himself. Knowing how important it is for one's story to be told and heard, Ponyboy takes the first steps of sharing the boys' story—the novel itself.
Hair
Part of the greasers' signature look is their long, oiled (“greasy”) hair. The boys on the East side are not wealthy enough to afford the material indicators of social status, like cars, clothes, jewelry, so they resort to a physical marker for their group identity. The cultural norm of the 1960s was for men to have short hair, like the “semi-Beatle haircuts” the Socs wear (141), so even the greasers' hair is a symbol of their rebellious and subversive ethos.
The significance of hair is evident when Johnny decides he and Pony need to cut their hair to disguise themselves. Pony is devastated at the thought of cutting his “tuff” hair—“it was our trademark. The one thing we were proud of” (71). Johnny reminds him that if they were to get caught the judge would make them cut their hair anyway because that is the one thing the lower-class boys have that can be taken away (71). For this reason, the Socs threaten to cut off Ponyboy's hair in the opening scenes of the novel.
Of all the gang members, Darry wears his hair the shortest and neatest, symbolic of the fact that he is the closest to being a Soc. Ponyboy knows that Darry's relationship with his greaser friends is the only thing keeping him identifying with the gang (126); he is determined to rise above his abject social standing, and his physical characteristics represent that.
Cars
In contrast to the greasers' hair, cars are a material symbol of wealth in the novel. The Socs' “tuff” new cars—Mustangs, Corvairs, Corvettes—are a blatant display of their upper-class standing. The greasers, when they do have the opportunity to borrow (or steal) a car, it is always old and “souped-up.” The cars also afford the Socs more mobility; while the greasers often have to travel by foot or with public transit, relegating them to their part of town, the Socs are able to roam the city as they wish, driving into the East side just for the sake of attacking greasers. Steve and Sodapop work at the local gas station, and though this brings them in close physical proximity to the fancy Soc cars, they are in a subservient position, constantly reminded of the cars they cannot afford.
Switchblades
Switchblades are an overt symbol of the violence they inflict, but they also subtly connect the beginning and end of the novel as a tool of desperation. Johnny, “who was the most law-abiding” greaser (33), began carrying a switchblade after his traumatic attack. He uses it to kill Bob as a desperate attempt to save Ponyboy and himself, and this rising action sets the rest of the novel's events in motion. Later, Dally threatens a nurse with Two-Bit's prized switchblade to escape the hospital, which places him at the rumble, at Johnny's death, and ultimately in the vacant lot where he is killed. Dally's death marks the falling action of the story, and when the police confiscate the weapon as they search Dally's body, it confirms that Two-Bit (and the rest of the gang) has lost not only his favorite possession but also a best friend.
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