The first Super Bowl game is played. Tornadoes kill 33 and injure more than 500 in Illinois. Muhammad Ali becomes a conscientious objector and refuses to go to the Vietnam War. Elvis Presley gets married. The Beatles’ Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is number one on the album charts.
Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black U.S. Supreme Court judge. Jim Morrison and The Doors defy the censors on the Ed Sullivan Show. Guerilla leader Che Guevara is executed in Bolivia. John McCain becomes a Prisoner of War.
These events of 1967 are ones that most people living at the time will remember. Most are milestones of sorts. A literary milestone occurring in Oklahoma that same year was the publication of a slim novel about high school gangs from the east side and the west side of Tulsa. S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders changed the face of young adult fiction.
The Outsiders and Teenage Insecurity
“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman – he looks tough, and I don’t – but I guess my own looks aren’t so bad. I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have. My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair.”
Quoting the whole first paragraph of the novel shows everything that sums up its appeal. Here the reader sees an unreliable teenage narrator who is both insecure and confident at the same time – wanting to look like someone else but knowing that his looks are what set him apart from others. Hinton’s emphasis on physical appearance, which is evident throughout the book, feels true for all of the characters: teenagers who have not grown into their personalities enough to rely more on them than on their outside appearances.
And the language. Controlled. Simple. Direct. The book does not contain fancy metaphors and extended descriptions. It tells a story. It gets to the heart of Ponyboy’s insecurity and to his real heart where his love for his family enables him to have courage and to grow and become stronger.
Mythic Appeal
This first paragraph also points out the novel’s enduring appeal and why it was ripe for film (as were many of Hinton’s novels that followed): The clique. The gang. The teenage divisions that are a part of learning how to be in the world, of learning one’s identity. The greasers and the socs are West Side Story, the Montagues and the Capulets, the punks and the athletes, the Goths and the cheerleaders. They are every opposing group that exists to bolster identity. And identity is the primary concern of a young adult. Who am I? Where do I fit in?
The book’s emphasis on appearance centers on what this first paragraph also focuses on: hair. In 1967, hair was a matter of great debate. It still is. Long hair meant outlaw – either hippy or hood. Hair or Easy Rider. It still does. Long hair distinguished your group of friends from others of the same age. It still does.
S. E. Hinton wrote this novel when she was sixteen-years-old. Though she wasn’t a member of a gang, she was a member of the teenage nation. Who better to write its anthem? So many young adult novels, especially the award-winners, sound so “adult.” As if all the identity problems have already been solved. As if the teenage characters are all somehow beyond the concerns of growing up. But the only way to get beyond the security of knowing one’s self is to go through the process.
The Necessity of Being a Teenager
Teenagers can’t – and shouldn’t – be automatic adults. That teenage period of insecurity and turmoil is also a time of great creativity and exploration. Strong friendships, like in the novel, are built, friendships that may last for the rest of a person’s life. And even if they don’t, they serve the purpose of supporting a person navigating through the teen waters.
For those who have never read The Outsiders or if it has been a long time, reading the book now, especially if they have teenagers living at home, is essential. Parents need to remember what it was like to not fit in. It is helpful to remember the emotional world that teenagers live in – that world of black and white where all options seem like extremes.
And therein lies the real power of this book: Though the action may not always seem true to life, the emotional truth of the book is undeniable. Children identify with fairy tales, not because they involve realistic plots and characters (they don’t!) but because the emotional reality of the stories hits home: Children often feel ignored like Cinderella, abandoned like Hansel and Gretel, unloved like Rapunzel.
Forty-three years later, this Oklahoma novel’s mythic relevance beats in the hearts of Ipod-wearing, cellphone-texting teens throughout the world.
References
Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders. New York: Puffin, 1967.
Shaun Perkins - Shaun Perkins, teacher, poet, storyteller, porch-sitter, beekeeper, gardener, writer, has been a high school and university teacher for ...
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