Stereotype
The Outsiders
Authors Note: Defying stereotype is an important theme shown throughout the book “The Outsiders”.
A stereotype is when someone judges someone else by the way they look or where they live while not knowing them. In the Outsiders there are multiple parts in the book where Ponyboy was judging the socs and the socs were judging the greasers.
Ponyboy thinks that the socs have it better and that they are bad people. The socs think that the greasers are no good and poor people. Ponyboy does not know the socs, nor do the socs know the greasers, but they are both judging each other. Why do you think they judge each other when they don’t know each other? Is it because the greasers are poor and the socs are rich? Or is it because the socs live on the west-side of town and the greasers live on the other? Should it even matter? No! It should not matter where they are from or if they are rich or poor. Maybe if they got to know one another it wouldn’t matter.
“The socs are bad people, who like jumping the greasers”. This is what the greasers said about the socs. They get this theory by what they seen some of the socs do. But little do they know that the socs are just like them. “Things are rough all over the place” that is what Cherry told Ponyboy. She was trying to let him know that everyone has a hard time in their life. Ponyboy thinks that because the socs are rich they don’t have problems. The socs know that the greasers are poor, but they look on the “outside” of them and say they are no good.
Ponyboy is not a soc, he does not know a soc, likewise the socs are not greasers nor do they know a greaser but they judge each other any ways. That describes a stereotype person.
