The Outsiders (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

The Greaser Gang

The Outsiders opens with the recollections of Ponyboy Curtis, the narrator of the story. He tells the reader in the first paragraph that he is a "greaser," from the poor neighborhood of his hometown. In the second paragraph, however, he explains that he is different from other greasers in his love of movies and books. Ponyboy is daydreaming after a Paul Newman movie when he is jumped by a gang of upper-class rich kids, known as socials, or "Socs." It is only the intervention of his two brothers and their friends that saves Ponyboy from being badly injured. The greasers have good reason to fear the Socs, a group of whom beat their friend Johnny so badly that he began to carry a switchblade wherever he went. Partly for this reason, Ponyboy's oldest brother Darry yells at him for going to the movies unaccompanied, and Pony relates that he feels that he can never please Darry.

On the next night, Pony and Johnny accompany Dallas Winston, the most hardened member of their gang, to a drive-in movie. There Dally begins to harass two Soc girls who are there without dates. After one of the girls, Cherry Valance, tells Dally to leave them alone, he leaves she and Ponyboy strike up a conversation. Dally returns, and when Johnny tells him to leave the girls alone, Dally stalks off for good. Later Two-Bit will join them, scaring Johnny in the process. Later Cherry asks, and Pony tells, why Johnny seems so jumpy and scared. After hearing how the Socs nearly killed Johnny, Cherry tells Ponyboy that "things are rough all over," but he does not believe her.

Greasers Vs. Socs

After the movie, Cherry and Ponyboy share their thoughts on the differences between Greasers and Socs, and Ponyboy is surprised to find that they have similarities, too. The three greaser boys are walking Cherry and her friend Marcia to Two-Bit's car when they are spotted by the Socs. In order to avoid a fight, Cherry and Marcia agree to go home with the Socs and Two-Bit also goes home. Johnny and Ponyboy remain at the lot and talk about how things should be different before falling asleep. After Pony arrives home late, Darry confronts, then slaps him. Pony runs out of the house, and he and Johnny go to the park so Ponyboy can cool off before returning home.

In the park, Johnny and Ponyboy are accosted by drunken Socs. After they try to drown Ponyboy, Johnny kills one of them with his knife. The two decide to run away, and Dally helps them by telling them where to hide and giving them money and a gun. They hop a train to their hideout, a church in the country. There they cut and bleach their hair to disguise their identities. Pony feels that in losing his hair style, he has lost his identity, a feature that made him a greaser: "Our hair labeled us greasers, too — it was our trademark. Maybe we couldn't have Corvairs or madras shirts, but we could have hair."

Ponyboy and Johnny pass a lonely and bored four or five days at the church, reading to each other from Gone with the Wind. One morning the two boys watch a sunrise, which reminds Ponyboy of a Robert Frost poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," though he feels that the poem's deeper meaning escapes him. The next morning, Dally arrives and tells them that Cherry Valance will testify on their behalf. This prompts Johnny to say that they will turn themselves in. Dally tries to talk Johnny out of it, not wanting jail to harden him, but Johnny is determined. They are on their way back to the church when they realize that it is on fire and that a group of kids is trapped inside.

Hoods and Heroes

Ponyboy and Johnny manage to rescue all the kids in the church, but Pony faints after Johnny pushes him out the window. When he wakes up in ambulance, one of the teachers tells him that in spite of Dally's heroism in pulling Johnny from the flames, Johnny is in critical condition. Pony tells the disbelieving teacher that he and Johnny are wanted for murder. At the hospital, Pony is reunited with his brothers; when he sees Darry crying, he realizes the depth of Darry's love and concern for him.

Because of the publicity, Ponyboy realizes that he and his brothers could be separated. He also finds out that Sandy, Soda's girlfriend, has left town, and it is implied that she is pregnant. Later, Pony and Two-Bit encounter Randy, one of the Socs, who is tormented by his part in what has happened. He tells Pony that he could never have gone into the fire to rescue someone as Ponyboy and Johnny did. Two-Bit and Ponyboy then go to the hospital, and Pony realizes that Johnny is dying. Johnny's eyes glow when Pony tells him he's being called a hero, but when Johnny's mother comes to see him, he passes out from the strain of trying to refuse her visit. When Pony and Two-Bit then visit Dally in his room, Pony thinks of Dally as his buddy for the first time. Later, Two-Bit and Pony run into Cherry Valance, who assures them the score-settling rumble with the Socs won't involve weapons. She angers Pony when she says she won't visit Johnny in the hospital because he killed Bob. When Cherry weeps, Ponyboy tells her they both see the same sunset.

The rumble begins later that night when Darry squares off against an old friend of his from high school. Dally runs up to join the rumble and helps Pony fight one of the Socs. He then takes Pony to see Johnny at the hospital to tell him of their victory. Johnny tells them that fighting does no good and then instructs Ponyboy to "stay gold" before he dies. The one thing he loves gone, Dally runs out of the room in agony. After Ponyboy arrives home, the gang gets a call from Dally, who has just robbed a store. They arrive at the vacant lot in time to see Dally killed in a shootout with the police, and Pony faints at the scene of Dally's death.

"staying Gold"

Ponyboy is still recovering when he is visited by Randy, who leaves when he realizes that Ponyboy is trying to deny that Johnny is dead. Pony plans to confess to killing Bob at the hearing inquiring into the incident, but he is not questioned about it. Pony and his brothers are granted permission to remain together, but Pony continues to have trouble recovering. He tries to write an essay so he can pass English, but finds all the possible topics either meaningless or too painful. After Pony and Darry argue again, Soda uncharacteristically explodes in anger, and Ponyboy learns that Sandy was cheating on Soda. She will not answer Soda's letters, and the baby she is carrying is not his. Ponyboy has been oblivious to Soda's pain, and after Soda tells them that without each other, they'll end up like Dally, they vow to fight less often.

Shortly after the family reconciliation, Ponyboy picks up Johnny's copy of Gone with the Wind. Inside, he finds a letter from Johnny, in which he tells Pony to let Dally know that it was worth it to rescue the children from the church, and that Pony can be whatever he wants to be in life, even though he is a greaser. Ponyboy finally realizes what it means to "stay gold." He begins to write his English theme, thinking of all the kids who need to know there is good in the world. He begins with the day that he walked out of the Paul Newman movie, forever changed by all that has happened since.