Ponyboy lost his parents, witnessed a murder, and lost his 2 best friends and Richard went hungry, lost his father, and almost kill a gang that was mugging him. The authors develop the theme in a certain way and both Wright and Hinton used similar and different ways to show it. In The Outsiders, Hinton makes Pony go through horrible events to change his innocence, just like Richard did, but they are different because Pony’s experiences revolve around death, (his parents, Bob the Soc, Johnny, and Dally) and that causes him to toughen up in order to keep him alive. But Richard went through different hardships, like not eating, his father leaving, and fighting, which isn’t as bad as what Pony went through. Overall, both of the main characters go through a lot of hardships which change their personalities and innocence which is the themes overall for both texts, but the events themselves are different. In life, we go through hard times and eventually we all have to give up our innocence, but the question is, when will you be ready to give up your innocence because the world is a scary place and we all will have to face it