In The Outsiders by S. E, Hinton, the author discusses many universal themes such as the way people act under pressure, trying to hide from reality, and friendship. The Outsiders is about a boy named Ponyboy who has two brothers named Barry and Sodapop that hang out with Johnny, Two-Bit, Daily, and Steve. The novel talks about how Ponyboy lived his life as a Greaser and all the problems he and his friends had. When under pressure, most people act differently than they would normally, especially if they place pressure on themselves as well. In the novel, The Outsiders, when the church that Ponyboy and Johnny were staying in after they had run away was burning, they went inside to save the kids that somehow got in because they thought that they had set the fire in the first place. Later, when Ponyboy is sitting in the car with Randy at the Tasty Freeze, Ponyboy exclaimed, “You might not have. You might have done the same thing.”
This implies the meaning, with the pressure; you do not know what you actually would have done. Friendships may sometimes consist of two or more people who become closer together than the people who are close to their own parents because of a lacking amount of care from their parents. For example, when Johnny is in the hospital, he only wants to see his friends. Even though his mom came to see him, he did not want to see her. This is showing that Johnny had become closer to his friends than his own mother because she had abused him so much People that hide from reality are actually hiding from themselves because reality is always there; you cannot make it go away no matter how hard you try. For instance, when Ponyboy is coming home from the hospital after Johnny died, he keeps telling himself, “Johnny is not dead,” repeatedly.
When he gets home, however, he has to tell the rest of his friends and family what really happened. This is showing that even though Ponyboy tries to hide from the fact that his friend Johnny is dead, it keeps coming back at him that Johnny is dead. These themes arejust a few of the numerous and important themes in the novel, m Outsiders, that S. E. Hinton mentions. In this day and age, many people try to hide themselves from reality and because of that, act even more differently under pressure. If people stopped to think about what they were doing and stopped trying to hide, they would be able to tell that it was not smart most of the time.
