THEME
1. Sometimes the antagonist can be something other than a person. Who or what is the antagonist in this movie?
Suggested Response:
The antagonist is the corrosive hatred that the teenagers have for each other as well as their willingness to resort to violence. Bob could be said to be the antagonist, but this exaggerates his role.
2. What did Johnny mean when he told Ponyboy to “stay gold”?
Suggested Response:
The term “stay gold” means keeping your youth, including your freshness, your innocence, and the goodness that comes with the first flush of life. It also means to be true to yourself. Many of the young adults in this movie, especially the Socs, have lost touch with their “gold.” They get drunk; they harass girls; they beat up other people. Among the Greasers, Dally, Darry, and perhaps Johnny have also lost some of their “gold;” each for his own reasons. Ponyboy shows that he still has his gold by running into the burning church to save the children. Johnny tried to regain his “gold” by entering the burning building, but once your “gold” is gone, can you ever get it back?
3. How much of what happened to Johnny was the result of his dysfunctional family?
Suggested Response:
A lot of it. Johnny was on his own because of his dysfunctional family. He was without resources, other than his friends. However, the corrosive environment of hatred and violence was also very harmful to Johnny.
4. What is the role of schooling and education in this movie?
Suggested Response:
Education is a way out. For Ponyboy, it is a way to define himself outside of the restrictions imposed on the Greasers. It is also an escape from the lower class, the poverty, and the danger of his social situation. His oldest brother, Darry, wanted to continue his education, but couldn’t because he had to take care of his two younger brothers. Darry encourages Ponyboy to keep learning, to use education as a tool to free himself from the confines of his environment.
5. When Randy and Ponyboy were talking in the car on the day of the rumble, Randy said that despite the outcome of the fight, “Greasers will still be Greasers, Socs will still be Socs.” Do you agree or disagree with that statement? Defend your position.
Suggested Response:
Randy was right. Socs will still go to college and get good jobs and Greasers will not further their education and will be relegated to low paying blue collar jobs. Randy also means that no matter what the outcome of the fight, the two groups will still be rivals. As Johnny said when he was told about the Greaser’s victory in the rumble: “It’s useless. Fighting ain’t no good.”
6. Who are “The Outsiders”?
Suggested Response:
“The Outsiders” are the Greasers. They are the lowest class of society. Most people they meet dislike them. They are feared by others. But in one sense, all teenagers are outsiders because they have not yet found their place in society.
7. In a time of crisis, you never know how someone is going to react. You don’t know in advance who is going to come through and who is going to fail. How is this shown in the movie?
Suggested Response:
The Sunday School teacher, the man who had responsibility for the children in the burning church, was unable to bring himself to enter the fire. It was the juvenile delinquents, Johnny, Ponyboy, and Dally, who saved the kids from the burning building. Another example is that Dally, the tough guy, couldn’t deal with Johnny’s death.
8. Where are the parents in this movie?
Suggested Response:
Ponyboy’s parents were killed in a car crash. The other parents are absent or destructive, like Johnny’s parents. They have no positive input into their children’s lives.
9. Why did the Socs hate the Greasers so much?
Suggested Response:
This is not explained and, in life, sometimes people are subjected to irrational, unreasoning hatred and dislike because of the group that they belong to. Examples are racism and anti-Semitism.
10. Who was more of a menace to society, the Socs or the Greasers?
Suggested Response:
Clearly, in this story it was the Socs. They were aggressive and persecuted the Greasers.
11. The Outsiders was set in the 1960s and written in the 1960s, yet it still remains very popular. Why is this story so timeless?
Suggested Response:
This is a story about teenagers trying to find their way to adulthood in a society that is not welcoming. All teenagers go through the process of trying to find out how they fit into adult society, but because of circumstances or their personalities, some teenagers have more difficulties in the transition than others. The problems of teenagers are structural, and stories of their efforts to find their way to adulthood can be timeless. Think of Romeo and Juliet, young lovers who had to contend with a society as violent and sick with hatred as the society shown in The Outsiders. Romeo and Juliet’s love could not prevail against the hatred around them. Look at Hamlet also by Shakespeare. Hamlet is about how a teenager, in an incredibly weak position, overcame obstacles to find justice but lost his life in the process. Thus, there are strong parallels between the situation of teenagers, at least from Shakespeare’s time, to our own. In addition, cliques have permeated high schools for decades and will probably do so for decades to come.
12. Darry, Ponyboy’s oldest brother, is an important character in the movie and is used to demonstrate one of the basic themes of the film. What about him is so important and what is the theme?
Suggested Response:
Darry was on his way to becoming a Soc. He was a football star and he made good grades. He had a lot of friends among the Socs. However, he had to drop out of school when his parents died. He was then classified as a Greaser and the friendships were lost. One point the author is trying to make here is that there is no difference between these two groups other than circumstances of birth and random events of their lives.
13. What is suicide by cop? Does this movie show a suicide by cop?
Suggested Response:
Suicide by cop is when a person deliberately provokes a peace officer to kill him or her. What happened was not entirely clear but it looked like Dally was trying to get the cops to kill him. At least the class can have a good debate about this.
The following two questions should be asked together:
14. Except for Ponyboy and Darry, where do you think most of the Greasers would be in ten years, in terms of their work and social status? What about the Socs?
Suggested Response:
Most of the Greasers will be working low paid blue collar jobs, and most of the Socs will be out of college starting their careers in the white collar workforce. Ponyboy and Darry have a chance to break out of those stereotypes.
15. In this story what happened to the American Dream? Do the Greasers believe that they can become anyone they want to be?
Suggested Response:
The Greasers, beaten down by their circumstances, don’t participate in the American Dream, except for Ponyboy. One can also hope that Darry will be able to go back to school once his younger brothers are self-supporting. The Socs and their parents live the American dream, but we don’t see it making them all that happy. In many ways, this story shows the end of the American Dream.
Several other themes of the movie are discussed in the Social-Emotional Learning Discussion Questions and in the Ethical Emphasis Discussion Questions.
CINEMATIC-LITERARY DEVICES IN THE MOVIE
16. In this story, we see events from the standpoint of Ponyboy. How does this cinematic-literary device affect the impact that the movie has on the viewer? How does this device affect the meaning of the movie for teenagers?
Suggested Response:
The fact that the story is told from the point of view of one of the characters makes the story very immediate and powerful. We (the audience) identify with Ponyboy and, as he learns, we learn. The fact that the story is told from the point of view of someone their age gives the story a special meaning for teenage viewers. In that sense, Johnny’s exhortation to Ponyboy to “stay gold” is a plea to all of us.
17. Which of the characters in this film could be considered a hero?
Suggested Response:
Johnny, for saving the children (and perhaps for saving Ponyboy, although he did kill someone in that process); Ponyboy, for saving the children, and Darry, for sacrificing his dreams and going to work to keep his family together.
18. Is this a story with a classic protagonist who changes and grows to meet the challenges posed by his circumstances? Think of how Luke Skywalker grew to meet challenges in the first Star Wars movie.
Suggested Response:
Yes and no. Ponyboy doesn’t grow and learn to slay the enemy as Luke did. Johnny’s action in killing Bob is one of the worst things that could happen to him. Ponyboy and Johnny grow by saving the children in the church and by growing in understanding. The thing that needs to be overcome in this story is not a person or a group of persons. (The Socs are not what need to be overcome. In fact, the characters acknowledge that the Greasers victory over the Socs in the rumble will not do the Greasers any good.) The corrosive hatred that the teenagers have for each other and their willingness to resort to violence is the antagonist in this story.
19. A child character in a story who by his or her death saves the other characters is a frequent theme of literature. Could Johnny be considered a child savior? Defend your conclusion.
Suggested Response:
An argument can be made that Johnny is a child savior. He dies, not only so that the children in the church may live, but his death also helps Ponyboy to mature and understand his world better. His death helps, to some extent, bring the Socs and the Greasers together because Cherry and Randy testify truthfully at Ponyboy’s hearing. This is not complete because Cherry still can’t bring herself to talk to Ponyboy at school. However, there is a difference between Johnny’s story and the classic child savior tale in that Johnny didn’t intend to sacrifice himself. He would have been happy to have saved the children in the burning church and given Ponyboy good advice without getting injured. Note also that Johnny’s death doesn’t help Dally. An example of a classic child savior tale is contained in the movie Behind the Sun. The most important and famous child savior is, of course, Jesus Christ.
20. Compare the story of Johnny to the story of another savior, Jesus Christ. In this question we are treating the Biblical story of Jesus as a piece of literature. (This is not a question about religion but about comparative literature.)
Suggested Response:
Johnny and Jesus both die for the sins of others. Johnny dies for the sins of the Socs and the Greasers — for a society which is obsessed with hatred and violence. Johnny’s injuries are permanent because we are only human and we cannot escape the laws of cause and effect. Jesus, in the story told in the New Testament, partakes of divinity. He dies for the sins of others (all mankind) but being divine, he is resurrected and then ascends to heaven. In short, the primary difference between the fate of Johnny and Jesus comes from the fact that Johnny is human and Jesus is divine. Another difference is that Johnny did not intend to sacrifice himself, while Jesus did.
21. Johnny teaches Ponyboy by his life, his words, and his death. Dally is another Greaser who dies. Is there anything to learn from his life and death? Is he a child savior like Johnny?
Suggested Response:
Certainly, much is to be learned from Dally’s life and death, i.e., don’t deny your feelings; don’t be tough so that you won’t get hurt because you’ll get hurt anyway; and don’t engage in risky behavior such as robbing a store or running from the police. But Dally doesn’t sacrifice himself for others, like Johnny did and the lessons from Dally’s life come from his weaknesses, not his strengths.
22. Throughout the movie, and in the book, we are inundated with different slang words and phrases like “cancer stick”, rumble, dig, Greaser, Soc, etc. What role does slang play in youth culture?
Suggested Response:
It is a way of setting the kids apart from their parents’ generation and establishing an independent identity.
GETTING INTO THE CHARACTERS
23. Dally said that a person had to be hard in this world and not have feelings for anyone. He claimed to be that way himself. Was this an accurate portrayal or do you have a different analysis of his character?
Suggested Response:
Dally was the opposite of what he said he was. He hurt so much that he could manage his emotions only by denying them almost completely. Dally had been hurt so many times, by his parents, by girls, and by the indifference of society, that he developed a very tough shell. But the shell was very brittle, and all the hurt was boiling inside him. In an unguarded moment, he told Johnny that he didn’t want to see Johnny get hardened in jail the way he had been. Dally cracked when Johnny, who was so good and so vulnerable and whom Dally loved, died. An argument can be made that Dally robbed the convenience store to attract the cops so that they could arrest or kill him.
24. Describe Cherry’s character.
Suggested Response:
She saw what the Socs were doing to the Greasers and didn’t like it. But she didn’t have the courage to stand up to the ostracism that she would suffer if she openly criticized what her friends were doing or associated with Greasers who she liked, specifically Ponyboy.
25. Describe Johnny’s character.
Suggested Response:
Johnny was the most vulnerable of the Greasers, but in some ways he was also the strongest. A year or two older than Ponyboy, Johnny often looked younger. His family was dysfunctional, and he found a family in the Greasers. Johnny was badly beaten by the Soc, Bob. Bob’s rings injured him, and after that Johnny felt afraid when he saw Socs, especially whenever he saw Bob’s rings. But Johnny was a stand up guy. He stood up to his hero Dally when Dally was harassing Cherry, and he did what he had to do to save Ponyboy’s life. He went into the burning church to save the children trapped inside. Johnny hated his own loss of innocence and felt guilty about killing Bob, even though he believed he had to do it to save Ponyboy.
26. Compare and contrast Dally and Johnny.
Suggested Response:
In some ways they were similar, but they had many differences. They were both Greasers. They were both courageous. Dally had a tough, brash and often rude exterior while Johnny was quiet, meek, and often fearful. However, Johnny was much stronger underneath than Dally. He did what he had to do against three larger Socs to save Ponyboy’s life. He ran into the church to save the children. He faced his own death bravely and wrote an insightful and mature letter to Ponyboy before he died. Dally could not take Johnny’s death. He was so distraught that he exploded and was killed by the police.
27. Describe Darry’s character.
Suggested Response:
Darry was willing to sacrifice his own dreams to keep his family together after his parents died. If that meant foregoing his hopes to play football and get a scholarship to college, he was willing to do it. He would get irritable and upset and sometimes take it out on Ponyboy, for whom he had very high expectations. Darry’s frustrations with his life situation were legitimate and his pressure on Ponyboy, while hard, was understandable. (In the story, there is one glaring inconsistency in Darry’s character: his participation in the rumble. What if he had been arrested or if one of his brothers had been arrested? That would have led the social services agencies to break up the family for sure. While an argument could be made that Darry went to the rumble only to protect his brothers, participating in the rumble is inconsistent with other parts of Darry’s personality.)
Ask the following two questions together:
28. Why was Dally so obnoxious to Cherry when they first met at the drive-in?
Suggested Response:
Dally was very attracted to Cherry but knew she was unattainable because she was a Soc. As a result, he acted aggressively and made her uncomfortable. Cherry was having none of it and defended herself. Johnny, who usually did the right thing, stood up for her.
29. Why didn’t Cherry ever want to see Dally again?
Suggested Response:
She told us. She was very attracted to him and could easily have fallen in love with him. She wouldn’t let herself because she knew it would not be good for her and besides, he was a Greaser. This is an example of the fact that hate and love are not opposites but instead they are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of love is indifference.
30. Why did Ponyboy and Johnny turn to Dally, of all people, for help?
Suggested Response:
Johnny admired and respected Dally. They knew that Dally would be true to the gang’s code of honor. After all, hadn’t Dally gone to jail for something Sodapop did? He was very tough and they knew that he would admire what Johnny had done. He was considered street smart and experienced. He had many connections. It was Dally who knew of the secret location to hide out.
31. What determined if a kid was a Soc or a Greaser?
Suggested Response:
For most, it was the economic situation of their family. Only a few like Darry and Ponyboy could transcend it, and they didn’t do it with money, they did it within the context of education.
See also Discussion Questions for Use With any Film that is a Work of Fiction.
