Premium Essay

The Outsiders: a Summary

In: Novels

Submitted By PaperTruffles
Words 822
Pages 4
The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider.

Ponyboy and his two brothers — Darrel (Darry), who is 20, and Sodapop, who is 16 — have recently lost their parents in an automobile accident. Pony and Soda are allowed to stay under Darry's guardianship as long as they all behave themselves. The boys are greasers, a class term that refers to the young men on the East Side, the poor side of town. The greasers' rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the "West-side rich kids."

The story opens with Pony walking home alone from a movie; he is stopped by a gang of Socs who proceed to beat him up. The Socs badly injure and threaten to kill Ponyboy; however, some of his gang happen upon the scene and run the Socs off. This incident sets the tone for the rest of the story, because the event tells the reader that a fight between these two groups needs no provocation.

The next night Pony and two other gang members, Dallas Winston (Dally) and Johnny Cade, go to a drive-in movie. There they meet Sherri (Cherry) Valance and her friend Marcia, who have left their Soc boyfriends at the drive-in because the boys were drinking. Dally leaves after giving the girls a hard time, but another greaser, Two-Bit Mathews, joins Pony and Johnny. The boys offer to walk the girls home after the movie, but along the way, the girls' boyfriends reappear and threaten to fight the greasers. Cherry stops the fight from happening, and the girls leave with their boyfriends.

Pony and Johnny go to a vacant lot to hang out before heading home. They fall asleep, and when Johnny wakes Pony up it's 2 a.m. Pony runs home, because the time is way past his curfew, and Darry is waiting up. Darry is furious with Pony and, in the heat of

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

The Outsiders Summary

...S.E. Hinton wrote a book that shows many themes of teenage life in 180 pages. Here’s a little bit about the author, S.E. Hinton. S.E. Hinton starting writing the book The Outsiders at the age of 15, but did most of the work when she was 16. Also, she uses her Initials instead of her full name, Susan Eloise Hinton, because her publisher was afraid that the reviewers would think that a girl couldn’t write a book like The Outsiders. A quick summary is this book there are two main groups. The Socs and The Greasers, in which is Ponyboy the protagonist of this story. Both groups do the same things, such as beating people up and robbing stores, but the Socs are favored because of stereotypes. Life is pretty normal for ponyboy until one night Johnny Cade, another member of Ponyboy’s...

Words: 938 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Summary: The Outsiders

...The adolescents are struggling these days. In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton describes the main character Ponyboy also known as Curtis is in a gang called the Greasers. The Greasers always thought that the Socs had it better than them, but they found out that the Socs are cool to the point of not feeling anything. In the article, “The Allure of Gangs” it also describes why kids join gangs and what leads them into conflicts, like in The Outsiders. However in the article “Cool at 13, Adrift at 23” it shows how the influence of their childhood plays a role later in life. In The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton it describes two groups of teenagers who have so many differences. In the book it says the Greasers were the poor kids and lived on the East Side. On the other hand, the Socs were the rich kids and lived on the West Side. The Socs were always getting drunk and looking for fights with the greasers. However to the public, the Socs were seen as good kids who didn't get into any trouble. On the other hand, the Greasers were seen unruly and unlawful to the...

Words: 880 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Outsiders Summary

...The first short story to be summarized is S.E. Hinton’s book “ The Outsiders”. The book “ The Outsiders” focuses on a youth teenager, age of fourteen ,Ponyboy and how he is trying to deal with life, with his parents death, living with his older two brothers Sodapop, being sixteen, the second oldest and Darry being twenty, the oldest and head of household, and dealing with the fight of the Greasers against the Socials. In the Greasers gang, the members include; Ponyboy, Sodapop, Darry, Steve, Sodapop’s best friend, Two-Bits Matthews, the oldest of the group, Dally Winston, the roughest and toughest of the gang, and Johnny Cade, who was the youngest of the gang. Ponyboy deals with lots of external conflicts like his social status and the big battle with the...

Words: 736 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Summary Of The Book 'The Outsiders' By S. E. Hinton

...In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton there is two types of people or gangs. You have the Greasers and the Socs the Greasers are the more poor people they live in a bad neighborhood but they still all get along well together. The Socs also get together well but they are more rich and they jump the Greasers for fun. The Socs are the people that have everything and don’t need anything and the Greasers are the exact opposite. The main characters are Soda pop, Ponyboy, Darry, Johnny, Two-Bit, Dally, Bob, and Cherry the story also takes place in Tulsa Oklahoma. My theme for this book is that when you are struggling you just need to talk to someone you trust. One example of is when Johnny and Ponyboy Killed Bob they went to talk to Dally...

Words: 394 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Boards of Directors’ Composition and Financial Performance: the Columbia Sportswear Case

...Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 II. Theoretical Background ................................................................................................................ 2 A. Board composition; .................................................................................................................... 3 B. Board size. ..................................................................................................................................... 3 C. Outsiders' representation. ....................................................................................................... 3 D. Minority Representation. .......................................................................................................... 4 E. Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 5 III. The Case: Columbia Sportswear Company .......................................................................... 5 A. About the company .................................................................................................................... 5 B. Columbia’s Board Of Directors ............................................................................................... 6 C. Criteria For Selecting Directors ................

Words: 4747 - Pages: 19

Free Essay

Cowboys and Indians

...English B - Higher Preparatory Examination Section B) 1. Summary of “Cowboys and Indians” by Lorien Crow: The narrator’s Grandma Ellen is dead, and they are on their way to the funeral. The narrator is surprised over the respect for the death, because she has not experienced it in the East, where she is from. The respect is shown in a way of people bowing their heads while they drive by. She is preparing the funeral feast and thanks the attending people, but she does not feel like being there. She phones her cousin, David as an escape plan. He arrives in the late afternoon on a motorbike and asks her what she would like to do. Her answer is; margaritas, and then they take off. She wrote letters to him about her life as a fourteen-year-old-girl. They go to a bar and drink tequilas. Afterwards they drive to the bluffs to watch the sunset. However, they are speaking of how their family thinks of them, and they agree on being the black sheep. After a delightful sunset, David drives his cousin back to the funeral feast. 2. Characterization of the narrator: * David thinks that his cousin is his favorite cousin, because she did not feel bad for him during the Gulf War. (page 8, line 29-30) * She feels like a black sheep in her family (page 8, line 56) * She loves her cousin. (page 7,line 13-14) * When David asks her what she wants to do, he does it with a Native American twinge, which sounds Canadian to her pale, untrained ear. (page 7, line 21-22) ...

Words: 644 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Cowboys and Indians

...Cowboys and Indians Summary: In the beginning the short story takes place at a funeral where the narrator’s grandmother, Ellen, is about to be buried. Afterwards the narrator goes to her grandmother’s house where she later meets her cousin, David, and decides to take a ride on his motorbike to find bar nearby to get a drink. David is adopted by the narrator’s uncle and has therefore made up a story about him being related to outlaws. After getting a drink they decide to go see the sunset, where they talk about their grandmother’s life, and suddenly David starts to think of his life and how he wants to get away from where he lives. They get hungry and find a nearby take out stand by the highway. At the stand they meet two native-American looking women. David says that the wind is picking up, and one of the women reply by that the wind brings devil spirits with it, and refers to David as a devil spirit. David doesn’t take their words kindly and both he and the narrator decide to go back, and from there they split up. The narrator: We don’t get a name of the narrator but when they get to the bar we find out that she is a female in the sentence: “I’m the only female in the place”. We don’t get her exact age either but to me it seems like she is in her post-teenage years around 17-19 years. The narrator got 2 different kinds of personalities. When she’s with David she´s comfortable, relaxed and stops thinking about all the bad things in her mind. She´s no insurgent at all...

Words: 777 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Sticks and Stones

...Cowboys and Indians Summary (150 words): This is a short story written by Lorien Crowe. The story is mainly about the narrator and her cousin. The story is set in New Mexico where their Grandmother used to live but she passed away. In the beginning of the story, the narrator is attending the funeral, there are many family members there and she thinks it is a little bit dull and crowded. Finally, Daniel arrives, her favorite cousin. They decide to take off from the arrangement and head to a bar on David’s new Ducati motorbike. They have a couple of drinks and head to a remote place to enjoy the sunset. They enjoy their time there, light a joint and become hungry therefore, they decide to go to a takeout stand at the highway. After this, they go home and David takes off before the family sees him, it was as if he was never there. Characterize the narrator: The Narrator has two sides to her. When she was at the funeral, she seemed very calm and didn’t really try to fit in with anyone at the arrangement. However, when David shows up she feels more alive and wants to do things that she normally would not do. But now that she’s with David she feels free and suddenly wants to go to a bar get a couple of drinks, then afterwards go up, and look at the sunset whilst smoking a joint. It seems like she is keeping a façade when she’s with the family she can first really be herself when she is with David. Comment on similarities and differences between David and the Narrator: ...

Words: 627 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Cowboys and Indians

...Section B Write a summary of Cowboys and Indians in about 150 words. In the beginning of the novel, we hear about the environment in which the narrator comes from. She is from a small town, and she has come home to participate in her grandmother’s funeral, even though she now lives in a big city on the east coast. The narrator does not feel she fits in with the rest of the family at the funeral preparations; therefore, she calls her cousin David. Together they drive fast through the city, ignoring the red traffic lights until they reach a bar where they drink. Afterwards they run to a hillside to watch the sunset. On the slope, she sits and think; David will never be able to understand the admiration she has had for her grandmother. They sit on the cliff and watch as the sun sets while smoking marihuana-cigarettes. Then they move, to get something to eat. As the narrator and David goes to a takeaway stall to get some food, they encounter some Indian women who talks to them. They say that they have brought the devils wind with them. David is frightened of it while the narrator is not affected. When they are at her grandmother’s house again, they say goodbye. (199 words) Characterize the narrator. The narrator is a very reflective person. She thinks of small details that make her reflect about existential questions and come up with big considerations about life. “He would never think of them as accomplishments; he would never be expected to perform any of them...

Words: 995 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Importance of Measuring Enterprise Impact

...Preventing Security Breaches: Collaborative Summary Jasmine Crosby BIS/221 March 26, 2015 Mr. Kelvin Sigler Preventing Security Breaches: Collaborative Summary Within Week 2 we had to discuss an article on Preventing Security Breaches. The article of discussion was “Confronting the Emerging Threat”. Out of this article was listed several ways companies could use to prevent security breaching within their company. One major preventive measure that was interesting in the article is that companies should prohibit employees on transmitting confidential information via email this prevents outsiders from breaching data within the company. Although it is important to use high security within company email does this really stop encrypted information going out into the wrong hands? It was also stated in this article that companies using database systems that are outside of the company are at a great risk. This great risk for example, is a company my employer uses that host several employees training classes and also the last four of each employee social security number. There was an instance when they had an issue with their server which placed our database at risk of losing thousands of data. The major issue is that their IT department stated to us that they had no backup of all the data that we entered in the system for the past year. If we had not saved all the data we input for the past year we would have had to start from scratch. Therefore it is better to be safe than sorry...

Words: 398 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Outsider Summery

...Summary: Chapter 1 - Outsiders The author defines a deviant as one who deviates from the rules of some social group (and who therefore is an outsider to that group). An outsider is also defined from the point of view of the deviant as those from the social group who act as judges and arbiters of the rules. The author explores deviant behaviour as a phenomenon of definition, as opposed to one of characteristics. That is to say that deviant behaviour is more a question of judgement by a group than a characteristic of the deviant person. Therefore accepting the label 'deviant' means implicitly accepting the values of the social group making the judgement. Chapter 2 - Kinds of Deviance - A Sequential Model In order to discuss models of deviance, the author introduces four types of deviant behaviour: 1. conforming; 2. pure deviant; 3. falsely accused (i.e. perceived as deviant but exhibiting obedient behaviour) and 4. secret deviant (i.e. exhibiting rule-breaking behaviour but not perceived as deviant). The author examines two types of models that could be used to investigate what causes the deviant behaviours to develop:- 1. simultaneous - which assumes that the behaviour develops simultaneously through many causes 2. sequential - where patterns of behaviour develop according to an orderly sequence of stages Simultaneous models are often used in investigations of pathology, to determine the combination of variables that may predict the behaviour...

Words: 1717 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Case Study Presentation

...the City, but the request for proposal required bid proponents to commit to paying at least sixty percent of their advertising revenue to the City. Three companies submitted proposals to the City as part of the bid process, the obligatory team of Clear Channel and Fouch was the top finisher. Plaintiff Corey Airport Services, Inc. finished in second place. After Corey failed to secure the contract, Corey filed an administrative bid protest. This protest was initially denied; Corey appealed the denial, but later abandoned the appeal after obtaining an evidentiary hearing. Corey then filed the present civil action against Clear Channel, Fouch, and certain city employees. Some of Corey’s claims were dismissed at summary judgment, and in an earlier appeal ordered that summary judgment be...

Words: 1641 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Principles of Information Security: Chapter 1 End-of-Chapter Questions

...Chapter 1 Assignmnet Ryan M. Kethcart INFOST-491 SEC-OL Exercises 1. Look up “the paper that started the study of computer security.” Prepare a summary of the key points. What in this paper specifically addresses security in areas previously unexamined? a. A paper titled the “Rand Report R-609” was sponsored by the Department of Defense and initiated the movement toward security that went beyond protecting physical locations. It attempted to define multiple controls and mechanisms necessary for the protection of a multilevel computer system; identifying the role of management and policy issues in computer security. This report/paper significantly expanded the scope of computer security to include the following: securing the data, limiting random and unauthorized access to said data, and involving personnel from multiple levels of the organization in matters pertaining to information security. 3. Consider the information stored on your personal computer. For each of the terms listed, find an example and document it: threat, threat agent, vulnerability, exposure, risk, attack, and exploit. a. Threat: i. Theft of Media b. Threat Agent: ii. Hacker (Ex: Ima Hacker) c. Vulnerability: iii. Unprotected system port d. Exposure: iv. Using a website monitored by malicious hackers, reveals a vulnerability – i.e. Unprotected system port e. Risk: v. Low level risk – The probability that...

Words: 790 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Rocky Mountain Mutual

...Executive Summary rocky mountain is a three years old insurance company in suburban and remote area of utah. It has a fitness centre featuring an indoor walking running track and most of the employees visit this fitness center. The establishment cost for this center was around one million dollars and the rubbing cost as of now is also very high due to maintenance and the other services. Keeping this in view Zachary Evans the new VP, operations of the company plans to shut down the fitness center to cut the expenses of the company. On proper analysis of the situation I come to the conclusion that the fitness center should remain open and it should be made available to more number of people by encouraging them to join the center. Word Count: 99 Table of Contents Serial No. Contents Page No. 1 Situation Analysis 1 2 Problem Statement 1 3 Options 1 4 Criteria 2 5 Evaluations of options 2 6 Recommendations 3 7 Action Plan 3 Situational Analysis The fitness center of rocky mountain is in debate this year after the appointment of the new VP, operations Zachary Evans, However in view of joe Mirola fitness center is a necessary requirement of the company to increase the efficiency of the employees and to attract the new employees from nearby area to come to rocky mountain. Looking at previous two year trends the employees who use fitness center take 50% less leave as compared to other employees and...

Words: 813 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Marine Science Article

...small. 4. What are eggers? Eggers are female lobsters that carry masses of roe on their underbellies. 5. How are females carrying eggs marked? Why do they do this? Mr. Day marked these by cutting a small v shaped notch in their tails so that other lobstermen would know they are breeding stock and by state law must be thrown back. 6. Why are oversized lobsters also thrown back? They are thrown back because they are considered superstuds of the ocean that produce bumper crops of young. 7. Besides following the rules closely, what are some other ways the lobstermen of Vinalhaven protect the lobster crop? New comers aren’t really welcome to the community. The Veteran lobstermen have a convincing way of discouraging outsiders from lobstering in their territory and require apprenticeships of locals. 8. Besides the lobstermen's efforts, what are other factors that may be influencing the numbers of lobsters? They said that the lobster boom is a scientific mystery, but for the most part, they have been effectively farmed. They have put more bait in the traps to attract more lobsters. 9. There are signs that the numbers may be dropping. What are the plans to try and keep the industry booming? The plan is expected to emphasize V-notching, limiting entry to new lobstermen and similar measures. 10. Would you become a lobsterman if you could? Why or why not? No, because it’d only be fun for a couple...

Words: 444 - Pages: 2