Stereotyping People

Author’s Note: Reading this essay you will see why I believe that the author of this book had stereotyping as the theme of the book.

            Growing up as a Greaser and living among the Socs, while being stereotyped based upon what has happened to the others in your group, is something most of the Greasers grow up with. In the book The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy is a Greaser who, in my eyes, shouldn’t have to grow up with people stereotyping him just because of the looks or actions of his group. In reality the other members of his group are nothing like him.

            Ponyboy is probably the most intelligent Greaser. He likes to read, he knows right from wrong (most of the time), and he is in classes with only the Socs. Strangely, Ponyboy stereotypes the Socs in the beginning of the story after the watching the movies with Johnny, Marcia, and Cherry. Ponyboy and Cherry were talking and he was saying how he thinks all Socs are snobs. It turns out, he was wrong about the Socs because Randy, in the end, turns out to understand what some Greasers have to live with. Randy had to go through a lot in order to realize people are a lot like each other.

            This story reminds me of another book called He’s with Me, by Tamara Summers. There is a girl named Lexie who, in the beginning, somewhat stereotypes Bree’s friend Sally. The only reason why she stereotypes is because she is friends with Bree. Lexie then realizes that Sally was mistreated and misjudged the whole time. She was being pushed around by Bree all the time and always had to sacrifice whatever Bree wanted, just so Bree could get her way.

            Reading these two books made me now think twice about stereotyping people. For now on, I am going to get to know the person before I say anything about them. This is something everyone should do. Just so everyone would be able to get a chance. Unlike how this world is.  

Stereotypes

 Author's Note: Reading this you will understand why I believe that the theme to this story is stereotypes.
Have you ever judged someone because of something you’ve heard about them? I know I have and then realized what I have heard was wrong. The person turned out to be a good friend. People would tell me this person was rude and a gossiper. It turns out the people, who told me this, were in fact just like what they described this person to be. Judging a person based on knowledge you either know or have been told to you is called stereotype. It’s not the best thing in the world, yet it exists.

            In the book The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, you find that the Greasers have been stereotyped forever. Stereotypes is the theme of this book. Reason for that is the society around them thinks all of them are criminals with no heart. Which is only true for a few of them, but even those few do have a heart. All of the Greasers might not be the typical looking person, but they sure do act like it. They have family problems, money issues, and friend problems just like the rest of the world. Just because they don’t look like it on the outside, they are like everyone else on the inside. Even though the leader, Dallas Winston, went to jail at the age of 10 and grew up in the streets of New York with gangs, he is still a person who is just trying to live just like everyone else.

            Some scenes in the book do tell you that the Greasers are judged by their society. For example, at the movies a man walked up to Cherry, Ponyboy, Johnny, and Marcia and asked where Dally was because he knew Dally had slashed his tires, even though there was no evidence that Dally had actually done it. This guy accused Dally because of his stereotyping of him.

            When you are hearing stories about people and rumors on their life, don’t always believe it. You never know if it is true. If you do judge a person based upon the “knowledge” you have about them, you are stereotyping. This is not the best thing in the world. You never know, the person might turn out to be the coolest person you’ve ever met!

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

 Author's Note: Reading this you will see what I think the poem that Ponyboy told Johnny, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," by Robert Frost's meaning is.
Thinking about the meaning to a poem can be challenging. The poem in “The Outsiders,” by S.E. Hinton, is one of those poems that takes awhile to figure out. Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is the poem Ponyboy tells Johnny while they are watching the remarkable sunset outside the church.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay

Once Ponyboy told Johnny this poem, Johnny started thinking about this poem and what it meant and how it relates to them. Also it reveals that Ponyboy reads a lot more than the other greasers. Yet he never really understood this poem.
I think this poem is about someone‘s life because everyone is born innocent then sometime in their life they lose their innocence. The line, “So Eden sank to grief”, is telling you the loss of someone’s innocence. Also, the last line is telling you the “death” of a person.

Looking at the fist and last line, they relate to one another. Nature’s first green is gold and nothing gold can stay, means that you are gold or young and you can’t stay gold or young forever. You can loose your innocence in life.