The outsiders review: Aidan Hughes

Stay Gold

Reveals ending

“The Outsiders” was an amazing novel and an alright film about a boy who is fourteen called Ponyboy who is the narrator in the book.Ponyboy is a Greaser, someone who is poorer and likes to wear their hair long with lots of grease. Greasers are terrorised by the Socs or richer people, in turn the greasers tend to form gangs and are violent. Ponyboy is in a gang with his two brothers Darry and Sodapop as well as Dally, Johnny, Two-Bit Mathew and Steve. Johnny is sixteen and is great friends with Ponyboy and was “jumped” by some socs in a blue mustang.  After Ponyboy, Johnny and Two-bit give Bob’s and Randy’s girlfriends, Cherry and Marcia, a ride after a movie Bob and Randy decide to bash Pony and Johnny. As Ponyboy is drowning the only way Johnny can help is by killing Bob with a switch blade. This means the two have to go and find Dally for some help. Dallas tells them to go to an abandoned church in the country to live for a while.  The novel was written by Susan Eloise Hinton who was seventeen when it was first published.

The events in the novel are more sensitive and emotional. You get a better idea of what was happening and the way it was affecting the characters due to Pony’s narration. Some stories and childhood memories that build Ponyboy’s character are removed from the film such as Soda’s horse Mickey Mouse.  

The characters in the novel and the film help to tell the story. In the novel you get a sense that you’ve known the characters for years and understand their point of view. The greases are also more distinctive in the novel and are closer to hoodlums than the film makes them to be. The films characters are close to the original but don’t have the same life to them as the novel did even t0hough most of the lines where the same or similar. They didn’t express the same personality as the novel.  An example of this is Dally in the film he’s the cool guy and is calm most of the time whereas in the novel he’s the scary guy you don’t mess around with an example of this is when Johnny told him to leave Cherry and her friend alone Ponyboy thinks of how Dallas once belted a complete stranger for telling him what to do. 

The novel was much better than film as the narration and the emotions of Ponyboy seems to tell the story much better though the movie did a good job in the way they presented the film. The use of slang makes the novel more realistic and gives you a clear sense of how things would happen and sound. The film is over dramatic and is mournful in different parts examples of this are when Johnny dies, its less emotional compared to when dally is killed. In the novel Dally is shot once and is killed like any criminal in the film however he has an over dramatised break down which ends in him getting shot by four police officers.

The Outsiders was vastly better as a novel than its counterpart film. The novel had more experiences and emotion whereas the film was over dramatises and doesn’t get the sensitivity of Ponyboy which gives the novel its magic. The novel is thrilling and was riveting in the that two people from the same background die in such different ways one a hero and one a criminal.