Defying Stereotypes

           

           Author’s note: I am writing about one of the three themes from the book “The Outsiders”. I am giving examples and writing what I think of them towards the theme “Defying Stereotypes”.

            One of the biggest Stereotypes in “The Outsiders” towards a person is Dally. When he was only ten years old he was in a big gang held in New York, and went to jail very often. Now that he lives with new people in a new town, people think of him as the worst person in the world. If people were to get their tires slashed or a bunch of their stuff stolen they would blame most of it all on Dally, thinking he is the bad guy when really he probably didn’t do it.

I think that those people are really selfish, and inconsiderate. They don’t think about any other of the gang members going to the car and slashing the tires, they always think Dally does it. I feel bad for Dally sometimes, there is times where he gets blamed majorly for something he didn’t even do, although sometimes it might have been him.

The biggest society stereotype is against the Greasers. People look at them as dumb, poor, and dirty. In the book the socs make fun of them and beat them up, which is a lot worse than what the society does to them. If they were to be a Greaser they would understand that the Greasers have no jubilation. Once they saw the family life and how the Greasers live they wouldn’t think of them as bad as they do, they would feel sorry for them.

I feel bad for the Greasers and what they go through, but I feel like the people just don’t understand. Like when Randy was talking to Ponyboy, he started to feel sorry for Ponyboy especially because of what had happened to his family. If the socs were to live with the Greasers for awhile, I don’t really think all of them would get over the fact that they are Greasers, some of them would but not all of them.

Another big stereotype is towards Johnny. Johnny is a sixteen year old boy who has a bad family life and is at the wrong place at the wrong time a lot. Everyone see him as the one who ruined his family life with his parents. He’s best friends with one of the most hated Greasers in the society.

I think that there are a lot of stereotypes in the book “The Outsiders”. The main one in the whole book is the Greasers and the society. People think they are just overly disgusting. I do think that it is upsetting that they think that, but I also totally understand that they just don’t know what they go through.