A Role Of Society in The Outsiders and Black Boy

Categories: Black Boy

No matter how hard we try, we will always have a hierarchy social structure in society. Sometimes the high ranking individuals abuse their powers. The book The Outsiders By S.E Hinton is a perfect example of this, you take a look through a not so privileged boy’s eyes named Ponyboy. He lives in a town in Southern Oklahoma where financial segregation is alive and well. The groups are simple, the poor hoods also known as Greasers on the East side, and the rich Socs on the West side.

Black Boy by Richard Wright is a autobiography of him growing up without a father in Memphis Tennessee. In both texts, their environment and situation forces them to lose their innocence and grow up earlier then they should of.

Ponyboy (the narrator) was already on the tipping point of losing all innocence when Johnny murdered Bob and had to stay in the abandoned church, but when Johnny died and Dally died that was the cherry on top.

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In that point of the story the mood had changed from a whimsical fun story to a more serious mood. The number one cause of loss of innocence is realization. The climax in the story when Johnny kills Bob and they have to stay up in a church for a bit, This made Ponyboy think. Think about how Darry cares about him, and he shows tough love to try to discipline him into a bright young man. This is an aha moment by Ponyboy.

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This setting impacted Pony’s innocence drastically by having him grow up in a harsh environment. People being mugged left and right, fights happening on every corner, drunks, an ordinary child at the time or a Soc would be frightened by these sights but, Ponyboy takes it with grain of salt. The characters force Ponyboy to grow up faster by treating him like an adult, Darry speaks to him like an adult and has respect for him. The soc´s made ponyboy grow up by forcing him to defend himself in dire situations. The conflict in his town is class separation and is also playing a big role in Ponyboy growing up, the socs think they are better than poor hoods/greasers like ponyboy and take advantage of themselves being narcissistic by jumping greasers such as Ponyboy, instead of being childish and running away (the near end of the book) he broke a bottle pointing the jagged edge at the soc´s implying ¨Bring It on¨. In this narrative by S.E hinton you can see the transition in Ponyboy's innocence from some to none while creating a beautiful concoction of Setting, Climax, Conflict, Resolution, and Character to make a theme of losing innocence can vary depending on your situation.

Black Boy an autobiography by Richard Wright has a shared theme with Outsiders by S.E Hinton. The theme is once again, the lost of innocence before it should've been lost because of being underprivileged, or a certain event. In this text it is a mix of both. The character Richard Wright, has had his mother teach him to grow up at an early age when told to go get groceries, even though it seems like a simple task, but there was a sort of roadblock. There was a group of kids that mugged him several times. His mother would not help him but helped him help himself. She gave him a stick and told him to defend himself, and obedient as a puppet he did. This was also the climax in the story, he stood up for himself instead of getting someone else to do it for him. There is a somewhat class division here as well. These kids that mugged him on the way to the grocery store were less financially stable as him so they took his money. The conflict that supports the theme is that he needs to get groceries and there are boys in the way that are going to rob him. This scared him twice but then the third time he realized he needed to defend himself. His mother, the resolution gave him a stick to defend himself. If you were innocent and childlike you would seek refuge instead of trying to retaliate.

There is a common theme of these texts and it is ¨Certain events can induce the loss of innocence as well as the environment” the event that is linked to losing innocence in Blackboy is when his mother raising him alone, Having no fatherly figure can negatively impact Richard. Ponyboy was impacted by his brothers and environment. You do not get to choose how you grow up, your surrounding environment decides when you lose your innocence or even have innocence at all. But when we are younger we want to grow up, when we are older we wish we were kids again, one thing I took from the Outsiders and Black boy is to take take advantage of living in a stable community and hold on to as much innocence as I can before it's too late.

Thesis Statement: W.8.2.a

Clearly states position with unique, original insight or perspective

Clearly states position with some depth of insight, thought, and/or originality

States position to focus topic

States position that attempts to focus topic

Has unclear position on topic

Development of Topic with Textual Evidence RL/RI.8.1W.8.2.b.W.8.9.a.b.

Your score: 2 Addresses the prompt and provides effective and comprehensive development of the claim or topic that is consistently appropriate to the task by using clear and convincing reasoning supported by relevant textual evidence

Addresses the prompt and provides mostly effective development of the claim or topic that is mostly appropriate to the task, by using clear reasoning supported by relevant textual evidence

Addresses the prompt and provides some development of the claim or topic that is somewhat appropriate to the task, by using some reasoning and text-based evidence

Addresses the prompt and develops the claim or topic and provides minimal development that is limited in its appropriateness to the task by using limited reasoning and text-based evidenceoris a developed, text-based response with little or no awareness of the prompt

Is undeveloped and/or inappropriate to the task

Organization of IdeasW.8.2.c

Your score: 1 Demonstrates purposeful coherence, clarity, and cohesion, making it easy to follow the writer’s progression of ideas

Demonstrates coherence, clarity, and cohesion, making it fairly easy to follow the writer’s progression of ideas

Demonstrates some coherence, clarity, and/or cohesion, making the writer’s progression of ideas usually discernible but not obvious

Demonstrates limited coherence, clarity, and/or cohesion, making the writer’s progression of ideas somewhat unclear

Lacks coherence, clarity, and cohesion

Concluding Statement/ SectionW.8.2.f

Your score: 2 Provides an effective concluding statement or section that follows from and clearly and convincingly supports the information or explanation presented

Provides a mostly effective concluding statement or section that follows from and clearly supports the information or explanation presented

Provides some concluding statement or section that follows from and somewhat supports the information or explanation presented

Provides a minimal concluding statement or section that is limited in its supports the information or explanation presented

Provides no concluding statement or section

Your score: 3 Establishes and maintains an effective style, attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline

Establishes and maintains a mostly effective style, while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline

Has a style that is somewhat effective, generally attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline

Has a style that has limited effectiveness, with limited awareness of the norms of the discipline

Has an inappropriate style, with little to no awareness of the norms of the discipline

Knowledge of Language and ConventionsL.8.1L.8.2L.8.3

Your score: 2 Demonstrates full command of the conventions of standard English at an appropriate level of complexity with no errors in mechanics, grammar, and usage

Demonstrates full command of the conventions of standard English at an appropriate level of complexity. There may be a few minor errors in mechanics, grammar, and usage, but meaning is clear

Demonstrates some command of the conventions of standard English at an appropriate level of complexity. There may be errors in mechanics, grammar, and usage that occasionally impede understanding, but the meaning is generally clear

Demonstrates limited command of the conventions of standard English at an appropriate level of complexity. There may be errors in mechanics, grammar, and usage that often impede understanding

Demonstrates no command of the conventions of standard English. Frequent and varied errors in mechanics, grammar, and usage impede understanding

Works cited

  1. Hinton, S. E. (1967). The Outsiders. Penguin Books.
  2. Wright, R. (1945). Black Boy. Harper & Row.
  3. Greenblatt, S. (Ed.). (2018). The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Volume D: 1914-1945. W. W. Norton & Company.
  4. Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2009). Modern Critical Interpretations: The Outsiders. Infobase Publishing.
  5. Washington, P. (Ed.). (2017). Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. University of Mississippi Press.
  6. Johnson, C. E. (2010). Understanding The Outsiders: A Novel by S.E. Hinton. Greenwood Publishing Group.
  7. Doyle, P. (Ed.). (2011). Richard Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger): A Casebook. Oxford University Press.
  8. Tally Jr, R. T. (2017). The Imaginative World of the Reconstructed South: S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. The Journal of Popular Culture, 50(3), 512-532.
  9. Levine, L. W. (2018). Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. Oxford University Press.
  10. Henderson, C. (Ed.). (2013). Richard Wright's Black Boy (American Hunger): A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students". Gale, Cengage Learning.
Updated: Feb 02, 2024
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A Role Of Society in The Outsiders and Black Boy. (2024, Feb 07). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/a-role-of-society-in-the-outsiders-and-black-boy-essay

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