Loyalty: The Key To Survival Have you ever felt vulnerable or threatened while surrounded by a group of strangers? What did you want at that time? Backup and friends to protect you, right? The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton perfectly represents this struggle and how friends help to resolve it. The novel is realistic fiction that is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1965. It is about how a gang of low-income teens, the Greasers, conflicts with another gang of wealthy teens, the Socs. By being loyal to each other, the Greasers have overcome most of the challenges that the Socs have proposed. This is why the major theme of The Outsiders is that loyalty is essential for a group’s survival and well-being. One way that loyalty is demonstrated in the novel is how the characters grouped together to protect one another from physical threats. An example of this is when Ponyboy was mugged and beat up by the Socs at the beginning the book. As Ponyboy was getting attacked, the rest of the Greasers (Dally, Steve, Darry, Sodapop, Two-Bit, and Johnny) showed up at the scene to protect Ponyboy. The gang had successfully outnumbered and scared the Socs off by hurling rocks at them, saving Ponyboy. This shows that the gang takes pride in making sure that they are together when tensions rise. Another event that conveys how the gang fought to defend …show more content…
During the night, they were approached by a group of Socs that began to pummel the boys, while drowning Ponyboy. Worried about