Identity In The Outsiders

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Being part of a gang give the characters in the novel a sense of belonging and purpose. This is shown by the identity of the group being valued more than the identity of an individual. Throughout the novel, it is continuously stated that Greasers are known for their long hair, the Socs also have a very specific and uniform appearance as Ponyboy tells the reader “They all looked as if they had been cut from the same piece of cloth…”. The familiarity of appearance in both groups means that all of the characters feel as though they belong and to others are easily identifiable as either a Greaser or a Soc. Another example of this is the values of the Greasers. Each Greaser is loyal, trust worthy, and dependable to the other members of their gang …show more content…
At school Ponyboy and Johnny are seen as a lower class and people not to mix with. Even though they are both nice boys Cherry and Marcia cannot associate with them as Cherry tells Ponyboy “I mean… if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don’t say hi, well it’s not personal or anything, but… We couldn’t let our parents see us with you all.”. At school both Ponyboy and Johnny are socially isolated from the other students just because they are Greasers. A further example of this is how society automatically blames the Greasers for bad things that happen and perceives them all as menacing hoodlums. This is displayed when Pony tells the reader “We look hoody and they look decent. It could be just the other way around – half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I’ve heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean – but people usually just go by looks. The gang is clearly isolated from society as they are all viewed as criminals. Consider Darry, he had a bright future ahead of him Mr popular at school, captain of the football team and even won a scholarship to college but because he is a Greaser and therefore does not have much money he could not go to college, lost friends and became stuck as an outsider of society as a Greaser. This is particularly apparent when he
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