Later, Ponyboy’s guardian, his older brother Darry, scolds him for walking alone. Ponyboy cries out for help, and his cries alert his brothers and fellow greasers, and the Socs flee. They came out and started beating him up, trying to cut off his hair. The car stops, and as he suspected, it was filled with their rival gang members. Socs are members of an affluent West Side gang who recently beat up Johnny and constantly fight them. A car trails him, and he suspects that it is filled with many Socs, their rival gang in that city. The book starts when the main character Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser (the gang of poor East Side kids in Tulsa), leaves a movie theatre after watching a Paul Newman movie and begins to walk home alone. Spoiler alert: important details of the novel are revealed below. His brother, Darry, slaps him for coming home late, which made Ponyboy run away with Johnny. Ponyboy and Johnny stay out and sleep in a vacant lot which makes Ponyboy get home late. Cherry and Marcia rode home with the Socs boys to prevent a fight.

The boyfriends of the Soc girls and other Socs arrive in a blue Mustang. Darry took over the responsibility for him after the death of their parents in a car accident. Ponyboy tells Cherry that his oldest brother, Darry, doesn’t like him. Cherry and Ponyboy talk about why Socs and greasers are different and discover they have some things in common. Two-Bit Mathews, a member of the greasers, shows up at the movies and offers to drive the Soc girls home. When they get there, Ponyboy talks about Johnny’s experience of being beaten by Socs, which explains Johnny’s decision to carry a knife. Cherry and Ponyboy head to the concession stand. At the movies, they make friends with two Soc girls, Cherry Valance and Marcia. Dally Winston invites them to see a movie the next night, and Ponyboy and Johnny agree to go. Walking home after seeing a Paul Newman movie, the narrator Ponyboy Curtis is jumped by members of a rival gang, the Socs, but his gang members arrive in time to scare them off. Hinton’s work has proved to people that teenagers can write about significant issues, such as gender, sexuality, and violence. People learned that juvenile fiction could go beyond dating and courtesy topics and move to address real issues with depth and nuance. ‘ The Outsiders‘ is one of the books that made people believe and start reading juvenile fiction, or what the publishing industry refers to as young adult fiction. Ponyboy learns valuable lessons about family, unity, friendship, and goodness and is affiliated with a group when a Greaser kills a Soc. Ponyboy Curtis and his gang of greasers regularly fight with another gang, the upper-class Socs.

The outsiders novel by se hinton