The Outsiders: What's the Buzz 40 Years Later?

by Keith Neilitz, English licensure candidate at Silver Lake College

            S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders has been a cultural phenomenon since it was first published in 1967.  Many critics maintain that it is the first young adult novel ever published.  The plot is relatively simple and straightforward.  Based in an unnamed city in Oklahoma, the story focuses on two rival groups that are at constant odds with one another.  The Greasers, a brotherhood of lower-class status teenagers, are routinely at the mercy of the Socs, a group of upper-class rich kids.  Despite the uncomplicated plot, the intensity, passion, and realism of the story captivate the reader’s attention to a degree that previous novels failed to do.  Aside from being written over forty years ago, the novel continues to be read, taught, and praised by instructors and students alike.  The essential question that is routinely contemplated by critics is why the novel has persevered for so long and continued to captivate young adult readers.  

            Perhaps the most significant reason that the novel has maintained popularity for so long is the quintessential realism of the plot that a young adult reader can relate to.  For example, the story wrestles with the tension between two rival groups that are constantly fighting.  Despite the narrator including a liberal dose of violence and brutality, the reader can easily relate to the idea of the formation of cliques during adolescence.  In addition, many of the feelings and transitions that young adult readers experience in their own lives are present throughout the novel.  Themes such as the loss of innocence, struggles with identity, anger, resentment, and feeling lost in an unpleasant world all contribute to the realistic aspects that young adults typically experience. 

            Two additional features of the novel The Outsiders that have captivated young adults for decades are the narrator’s inclusion of unbridled action and the exclusion of unnecessary details.  The novel includes a variety of highly charged events that maintain the interest of the reader.  For instance, the novel begins with a violent episode that foreshadows many events of remainder of the book.   As the novel unravels, the narrator provides brief, yet seminal information about relationships between members of the two groups, family dynamics, and character attributes.  However, the narrator eschews bombarding the reader with excessive details, and thus, the novel progresses without becoming cumbersome or tedious. 

            The Outsiders has maintained unprecedented longevity within the genre of young adult literature because of the writer’s incorporation of convincing realism, description of feelings and experiences relevant to the reader, and the inclusion of rousing action.  The plot features two rival groups that exude continuous hostility, which speaks candidly to young readers as it parallels the factions that develop during adolescence.  Moreover, the narrator’s interpolation of persistent action elicits the reader’s desire to ascertain subsequent events of the plot.  And finally, the novel maintains the interest of the reader by excluding details that would hinder the continuity of the story.  

Keith Neilitz has an undergraduate degree in Behavioral Science and Law and a Masters degree in Psychology.  However, his passion for literature has led him to reenroll in academia at Silver Lake College to procure a teaching certification license in English.