Brotherhood In Hinton's The Outsiders

No parents. Two brothers and a gang that describes brotherhood. These are the three aspects that define the novel The Outsiders. With thoughts swirling in his mind, fourteen year old, Ponyboy Curtis steps out of the movie house. Ponyboy, a greaser, with Johnny Cade, kill Bob Sheldon, a Soc, in self defense. In the attempts of not getting caught Pony and the gang lose some of their valued members of their crew by the Socs, who believe having money equals superiority. After this occurrence and facing many hardships, Ponyboy is found clean-handed in the hearing of the case. Ponyboy's experience and hardships revel the real struggles the greasers have to face throughout their life.Throughout the novel the greasers are described as a class that represents the bottom of the food chain, leading them to struggle more than the Socs and live a miserable life in poverty, unappreciative parents, and posses an indigent reputation as hoodlums. The Greasers, compared to the Socs, have many frequent
“Johnny’s parents don’t care if he came home or not”(Hinton 49). This explains how Johnny, a greaser, roamed around at night and his parents would not have cared if he came home or not. The only time Johnny’s parents noticed him was when they gave him beatings. “My parents, Johnny repeated doggedly, “did they ask about me”(Hinton 88). Johnny asks this question despite the fact that Dally ignoring him once was his answer of no. This shows that he considers that maybe his folks were worried that he has been gone for so long, but a greaser parent do not care and neither did Johnny's parents. Altogether, a greaser parent is negligent about their kids, which verifies to be yet another argument that a greasers life has much more struggles than that of a Soc. Also, another struggle that the greasers go through is having a poor reputation of being a