Themes Essay

The Outsiders “Themes” Essay

The Outsiders is a great book where Ponyboy (Aka the Narrator) who tells a story from his point of view about the War between two sides: The Soc’s (The Socials; Rich, live social lives) and the Greasers (Long slick hair, poor, non-social lives). The main plot of the story is that Ponyboy and his buddy Johnny are cornered by the Soc’s (You can find and read this in Chapter 4) and Bob (The leader of the Soc’s) orders his second hand man Randy, to give Ponyboy a “Bath”. Nearly drowning Ponyboy, Johnny couldn’t take it, he pushed the limit. He ran past everyone of the Greasers only to go for Bob, brings out his switch blade and kills bob. And now they are on the run from the Greasers and the Law fearing that they would get the Electric Chair.

Themes for this story, there are many but the main one just from the Plot, would be Survival Its obviously survival. How? Here is how. First off right out of the hat, the Plot. They are running from the Law. Plus they killed a Soc. The kill was for survival. Sometimes in life you do what it takes. Next are the Children in the church and the Fire. When the church bursts into flames Johnny and Ponyboy made the decision to save those children, there was no time to get help. They chose to do it for the children’s lives. They sacrificed their lives (Literally for Johnny {Spoiler}) for the children’s own survival.

Last but not least when the Soc’s cornered Ponyboy and Johnny, Ponyboy tried to stand up to the Soc’s for Johnny. He was the kind of guy who was afraid, a lost kid at a amusement park. He tried to have them back off so he and Johnny could escape. But of course that didn’t happen, but even if it did it would count as survival. You do what it takes in the world to survive. Kill, eat, drink, etc. This story clearly states that Survival is indeed one of the plotlines for The Outsiders