Greasers In The Outsiders

The book “The Outsiders” has two rival gangs the Socs and Greasers, the rich and the poor. And how they are different than how society perceives them as. The Socs are shown in societies eye’s as law abiding, town heroes are actually just rich hoods who, find enjoyment in ganging up on Greasers and causing mischief. The greasy hoodlums known as Greasers are poor, young heroes in disguise that have feelings. They live in rundown neighbourhoods with a lacking education. Society views Greasers as low down dirty hoodlums who cause trouble for their own enjoyment and, that Socs are viewed as perfect angels, heroes of society even. the Socs are not blamed for anything, whenever they do something the adults always assume it’s because the Greasers did

Nothing is real with us.” (Hinton 38) A line from a Soc, they themselves have realized that not only the Greasers but they have also had to contort themselves to the facade of being a Soc “A cool kid with a lot of money, but little emotion.” These children have blinded themselves with a feeling of superiority. They make themselves into who they are supposed to be and how they are supposed to act as a Soc. And the adult society does nothing to stop or change how these kids are acting. They just praise them for it without correcting them, leading to the problem or “way of life” for them from dissolving.

“What kind of world is it where all I have to be proud of is a reputation for a hood, and greasy hair?” (Hinton 132) Spoken from the children, they have nothing to be proud of. They have little to no education, being in their gangs usually puts them in a spot to not try to get higher in life such as a real career or stable life. Their mentality of their gangs, specifically the Greasers are to always have each others backs and going off on your own and leaving everyone behind feels like a form of betrayal or really just not what you're supposed to