Contents
Introduction
Chronology
9
12
Chapter 1: Background on S.E. Hinton
1. The Life and Works of S.E. Hinton
J. Sydney Jones
16
An overview of S.E. Hinton’s life and writing as understood through Hinton’s novels and children’s books.
2. S.E. Hinton on The Outsiders and Young Adult
Literature of the 1960s
S.E. Hinton, as told to Lisa Ehrichs
30
In this 1981 interview, Hinton discusses her growing
fame, why she wrote The Outsiders and other gritty young
adult novels, and her advice to young writers.
3. Hinton on Her Work and Its Adaptation to Film
S.E. Hinton and Anne Commire
33
Selections from several different interviews with Hinton
detail the author’s experience working with Hollywood
directors, screenwriters, and actors on the film adaptations of several of her novels.
4. The Outsiders Continues to Touch Young Adults
in the Twenty-First-Century
Connie Ogle
38
The popularity of Hinton’s best-known work, The Outsiders, continues, even as her writing has evolved to encompass a variety of genres.
Chapter 2: The Outsiders and Teen Issues
1. The Genius of The Outsiders Is in Its Honesty
About Violence and Danger in Teens’ Lives
Stephanie Zacharek
Date: May 10, 2012
Comp Specialist: adarga
44
Edit session: 761
Hinton’s writing for adults, although often lean and well
crafted, cannot match her young adult work, including
The Outsiders. Her young adult novels draw their energy
from their honest depiction of the taboos that define teen
life.
2. The Outsiders Gives an Unrealistic,
Romanticized View of Teen Life
Michael Malone
48
Despite being heralded for its “gritty realism,” The Outsiders is not very realistic at all but rather a kind of hybrid fairy-tale romance novel. The book attracts teens not
because of its supposed realism but because it speaks directly and persuasively to their idealism.
3. The Outsiders Demonstrates How Teens Can
Transcend Socioeconomic Class Divisions
Michael Pearlman
57
The authors of adolescent fiction—including Hinton—
employ socioeconomic status within their novels both to
define their characters and to show how characters
change over the course of the novel. This invites readers
to at once see the reality of socioeconomic class and look
past it.
4. The Outsiders Reinforces the Existing
Social Order
Eric L. Tribunella
65
At first glance The Outsiders appears to attack the unfair
distribution of wealth and power in America by highlighting the injustice of the arbitrary divisions between
the rich and poor. But the book ultimately undercuts its
own message and reinforces the existing system.
5. The Outsiders Offers a Nuanced Critique
of Class Mobility and Gender Identity
June Pulliam
79
The Outsiders offers an interesting and nuanced analysis
of class and gender. While wealth and social class seem
to liberate the Socs, Hinton also seems to argue that class
condemns them to rigid gender roles. Meanwhile, by virtue of their tough image, greasers are able to engage in
what would otherwise be unacceptably feminine behavior.
6. Opulence to Decadence: The Outsiders
and Less Than Zero
Ellen A. Seay
92
This viewpoint compares Hinton’s The Outsiders with
Bret Easton Ellis’s Less than Zero, a novel steeped in
violence, profanity, and morally ambiguous sex. Despite
many differences in both aesthetics and plot, both novels
depict worlds devoid of nurturing adults.
7. The Outsiders Argues That Peer Brotherhood Is
the Essential Social Bond for the
Disenfranchised
Lizzie Skurnick
100
Hinton’s novels demonstrate that the brotherhood offered by gangs—as opposed to the nuclear family and its
extended network—is the primary social support network available to many boys living in poverty.
8. Teachers Find The Outsiders Ideal for Addressing
Adolescent Alienation and Class Conflict
Michael Modleski
105
The Outsiders continues to be a popular book among
educators both for its clear language and plotting and its
positive social messages. Certain classroom methods can
maximize the book’s impact among middle school readers.
Chapter 3: Contemporary Perspectives
on Teen Issues
1. Poverty and Desperation Drive Some Parents
to Abandon Their Teen Children
Nordette Adams
Date: May 10, 2012
Comp Specialist: adarga
116
Edit session: 761
In July 2008 Nebraska enacted a “safe-haven” law that,
due to its wording, made it possible for a parent to legally abandon his or her children at any Nebraska hospital. During the few months this law was in effect, thirtyfive children (many of them “troubled teens” from out of
state) were dumped at Nebraska hospitals, their parents
driven by financial crisis or other desperate circumstances.
2. Indulgent Parenting Among the Privileged
Causes Teen Anxiety and Depression
Lori Gottlieb
123
Wealthy parents obsessed with their children’s happiness
and self-esteem may inadvertently raise a generation of
adults mired in indecisiveness, anxiety, and depression—
eerily familiar to the Socs’ description of the home life of
Bob Sheldon, the Soc that Johnny kills in self-defense.
3. An Epidemic of Teen Violence
Jane Velez-Mitchell
133
The “epidemic of teen violence” can be traced to three
factors: (1) the glorification of violent problem solving,
(2) a criminal justice system that behaves brutally toward
wayward youths, and (3) a lack of steadfast parenting
and adult mentoring for boys.
4. Trends in Teen Suicide
Jessica Portner
143
Suicide has sharply increased in the United States since
the 1960s. Today, one out of every thirteen teens attempts suicide. Such self-destructive behavior takes many
forms, including, for some teens desperately seeking escape from gang life, “suicide by cop.”
For Further Discussion
For Further Reading
Bibliography
Index
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