Julia Gorst's REAL Review

The Outsiders

“The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton is a novel published in 1967 that explores themes on the area between childhood innocence and adulthood, and social classes in the small American town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The novel, published when Hinton was only eighteen, follows the journey of Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen year old “Greaser” from the wrong side of town. The story is emotional and, at times, heart-wrenching, speaking to readers of all ages and genders. The film, released in 1983 and directed by Francis Coppola, is also easily accessible. The magnetic story translates well onto screen, and while there are some differences in between the book and movie, for the most part Coppola managed to stay true to the original story, though I find the book more effective at telling the story.

The story of “The Outsiders” follows Ponyboy’s journey into partial adulthood, a process started when his friend, Johnny, stabs Bob, a drunken “Soc” (short for social- the rich kids and sworn enemies of the Greasers) in self defence and consequently kills him. With the help of their friend and fellow gang-member, Dally, they go on the run and hide in an abandoned church for a week, living off baloney and passing the time by playing cards and reading “Gone With The Wind”.  Ponyboy, ever the dreamer of the gang, helps Johnny notice things such as the sunset and in a particularly memorable scene in both book and film, recites Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”. In one sense, this poem could mean the loss of innocence, a major theme in the book. It also acts as a sort of foreshadowing of character deaths.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden’s sand to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Dally soon comes to check on them and, in a short absence from the sanctuary of the old church, a fire starts from one of their cigarettes and traps children who were playing there. Bravely, Johnny, Ponyboy and Dally rescue the children, but not without Johnny getting critically injured. The three of them return home and are made out to be the heroes (an unusual occurrence for Greasers). There’s a rumble in between the Greasers and Socs over the death of Bob, and the Greasers are offered help by Cherry Valence, Bob’s girlfriend and Ponyboy’s short-time friend. The film does spend more time on the conflict and violence in the story than the book, probably because action is so popular in movies and amongst audiences. The Greasers win the fight, and Ponyboy and Dally go to the hospital to tell Johnny, who sadly passes away with the last words of “Stay gold, Ponyboy”. This scene in heartbreaking, and that feeling is amplified by Dally’s reaction- he’s angry and hurt, because as a hardened hood he’s not used to caring, and he can’t take it. He runs off, robs a shop and provokes the police into shooting him. Ponyboy loses two friends in one night, and the gang is left devastated by the loss. The movie follows the plot closely, a satisfying thing to see when many movies made more recently leave out much of what fans of their original novels consider important.

 A main difference between the novel and film is that, with the exceptions of Johnny and Dally, the viewers of the movie don’t get to see as much into the other members of the gang as they would were they reading the book. The Curtis brothers’ parents had died eight months before the story starts, leaving Sodapop and Ponyboy under the care of Darrel, the eldest brother who had to give up his college dreams. Sodapop dropped out of school to work fulltime, but Ponyboy was a high achiever when it came to school and decided to stay. The three brothers are very different, and Ponyboy and Darrel clash constantly over Ponyboy’s dreamer-like ways. Sodapop acts as Ponyboy’s emotional support, standing up for him when Darrel gets mad. It is hard to translate a lot of information from first-person, literary form to a film, and this is shown when Two-Bit and Steve, other members of their gang, are left undeveloped in the film to viewers who had not previously read the book. A lot of the stories of Dally, Sodapop, Two-Bit and Steve are left out of the story, though nothing particularly important to the plot is omitted.

Where words cannot be used, it is admirable how shot types and artistic techniques in the film can convey emotions and moods, and even add an element that the book could not. This is exemplified by the “Nothing Gold Can Stay” scene, in which cinematic elements add depth and emotion to the poem and what it means to Ponyboy and Johnny.



Ponyboy is the "Nothing Gold Can Stay" scene



Things such as camera angle and music add what would otherwise be left out. Though the music in the film is a tad overdramatic, it does its job and helps set the scene. The novel can even be occasionally lacking in the mood-setting department, perhaps intentionally- it is implied that Ponyboy is the author, and our protagonist is not overly eloquent- or perhaps because of S.E. Hinton’s young age at the time. Some descriptions are beautiful, but the way things are expressed is left up to the imagination most of the time (though the dialogue does speak for itself in many cases.) This may be difficult to process for a less comprehensive or younger reader. For those people, the film is probably more accessible.

Overall, I prefer the novel, simply because I always feel as though I can get more out of books than I can films. Both, however, were beautifully done (all things considered) and I felt as if the emotional journey Ponyboy went through was obvious in both. I would not say that either is better than the other, because with two very different mediums it is not fair to compare them in technical terms, as differences are bound to appear with no fault to the director- it is impossible for them to not. One thing that can be said is that Hinton penned a story that has been touching lives for decades, and will continue to do so because Ponyboy is such a lovable and relatable character, and his journey can give people a new way of thinking and viewing the world. The tragic circumstance of his transition into adulthood is heartbreaking and emotional. It is a story that will linger with you for some time after the last page is turned, and the end credits are over.