tHE oUTSIDERS

Themes

• Class
• Loyaty

Class
The Outsiders is driven by class conflict. Fourteen year old narrator. Ponyboy's gang, the Greasers, hail from the economically struggling East Side, while the rival gang, the Socs come from the wealthy West Side.These two groups are locked in a battle with no winners.The Outsiders is concerned with internal conflict and with its characters inner lives, but most of the action and conflict is framed by interactions within and between groups.

Loyalty
Ponyboy doesn't like some of the people in his gang, especially dangerous Dallas Winston, but he would still do anything for Dallas and would defend him from danger if possible. Loyalty, according to Ponyboy, is the thread that holds his gang together. It cuts across their differences. They're loyal to each other because they know each other well, have grown up together and have faced hard times together. In the case of the Curtis boys, their loyalty is because they are brothers, and orphaned brothers at that. The novel explores what happens when Ponyboy and his oldest brother begin to lose this loyalty for one another, under the strain of their lives.