Examples Of Violence In The Outsiders

The novel “The Outsiders” by S.E Hinton depicts the theme of violence predominantly. This novel portrays how violence leaves physical and emotional scars. SE Hilton explores the effect of living in a place where a teenager can't even walk home by himself and where fear is the foremost emotion. Gang violence, shooting, stabbing, ignorance etc are examples of violence illustrated in the novel. I will explore the theme of violence through characters such as Johnny,Dally and Bob and analyse the emotional and physical damage caused by the violence in this novel. These characters inflict and/or suffer from physical, emotional and verbal violence.

Johnny was described as “"a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers.” Violence had scarred him, physically and emotionally. He had been harmed by violence up to the point where he was “scared of his own shadow.” All his life Johnny has been insulted, ignored and abused. He’s been told how he has no value by his parents,which emotionally impacted his confidence and self

He portrays gang violence more than anything. He constantly harrases the greasers accompanied by his gang. Additionally he wears several rings to scratch greasers so they go through more pain. Bob verbally offends the greasers by calling them “White trash with long, greasy hair.” Furthermore, Bob was a heavy drinker, who was “reeling and passing out in the streets” often. His own girlfriend, Cherry Valance is against it although he doesn’t care and still gets crazily drunk. “His parents let him run wild” and didn’t set boundaries. Bob doesn't work for anything, but he ironically gets everything he wants. PonyBoy wonders if it’s "because they loved him too much” or they loved him “too little?" Bob was also the main soc responsible for the beating of Johnny, and him and his gang was responsible for almost drowning ponyboy which led to Johnny stabbing