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The
Outsiders S.E. Hinton
Plot
Chapter 1
Ponyboy Curtis, the _______-, begins the novel with a story: he is walking
home one afternoon after watching a Paul Newman ______, and his mind starts to ________.
He thinks about how he wants Paul Newmans ______ looks, though he likes his own _______ look. He also thinks that, although
he likes to watch _______ alone, he wishes he had company for the _______ home.
Ponyboy steps back from his story to explain that walking alone is _______ for greasers, the East Side
gang of _______ to which he belongs. When they walk by themselves, greasers attract the harassment of _______, or Socs, the
______ West Side crowd. Ponyboy says that greasers are
______ and wilder than the Socs, whom the newspapers condemn one day for throwing ________ and praise the next day for good
citizenship. Greasers wear their hair ________ and put grease in it. They dress tough, ______, and get into gang ______. They
often carry _________, mainly to help them stand their ground against the Socs.
Ponyboy says he does not participate in typical greaser _______ because his oldest brother, Darrell (known as Darry), would kill him if he got into ______. Ponyboys
parents died in a ____ ______, so the three Curtis brothers live together by
themselves, an arrangement possible only as long as they ______ out of ______. Twenty-year-old Darry acts as ______ of the
family. He is _____ with Ponyboy and often _______ at him. Despite his intelligence, Ponyboy lacks common ______, which frustrates
Darry. Ponyboy feels great affection for his ______-year-old brother, Sodapop, whose charm and cheerfulness he _________.
Ponyboy returns to the story of his solitary _____ after the movies. As he walks, he notices
a _____ Corvair trailing him. He quickens his pace as he remembers how _______the Socs beat his friend Johnny _______. The
Corvair pulls up beside Ponyboy and five Socs climb out and _______ him. One of them asks, Need a haircut, greaser? and pulls
out a _____. The Socs begin to beat up Ponyboy, who ________ for help. Ponyboys brothers and the rest of their ______ appear
on the scene and chase away the Socs. Darry starts to scold ________ for walking home alone instead of calling for a ride,
but Sodapop tells him to stop __________.
The brothers and the other greasers and make plans for the following _______. Ponyboy _______
that he and Johnny will go to a double _______ at the drive-in with their friend Dally. Dally begins to talk about his __-__________,
Sylvia, and Ponyboy thinks about the girls that socialize with the _______. He wonders what it would be like to spend time
with an upper class Soc ______.
At home, Ponyboy, who loves to ______, reads Great Expectations
and thinks about how his life resembles the life of Pip, the main _______in Great Expectations.
Still shaken by his _______ with the Socs, Ponyboy climbs into _____ with Sodapop. The brothers talk about Sodapops girlfriend,
Sandy, whom Sodapop hopes to ________ one day.
Chapter 2
The next ______, Ponyboy and Johnny go with Dally to a double feature at the ______- _____ theater. They sit behind a ______ Soc girls, and Dally begins to talk dirty
in an attempt to _______ the girls. The girl with red hair turns around and coolly tells him to _______, but Dally continues
to make suggestive remarks. He goes to buy ________, and Ponyboy talks to the red-haired girl, ________ Valance. They talk about the _________and about Sodapop, whom Cherry
describes as a doll. She asks what became of ___________, and although the admission __________ him, Ponyboy says that Sodapop
dropped out of _________ to work in a _____ station. Cherry and her friend Marcia invite Ponyboy and Johnny to watch the _________
with them. Dally comes back and offers a Coke to Cherry, but she ________ it in his face. Dally tries to put his _______ around
her. When he will not listen to Cherrys protests, the usually quiet Johnny stuns Dally by telling him not to _______ the girls.
Dally stalks off, and the boys sit with the girls and watch the movie. Two-Bit, one of Ponyboys________, comes to announce that Dally has
________ Tim Shepards tires and is going to have to _________ him. Tim
Shepard is the leader of another greaser ________. Two-Bit explains the greasers two main rules: always stick together and
never get ________.
Cherry and Ponyboy go to get __________, and Ponyboy tells her about the time the _______ beat up Johnny. The
leader of the ________that beat him, Ponyboy says, wore a fistful of _______. Cherry looks distressed and assures him that
not all Socs are ________ like the Socs that beat Johnny. She also tells him that Socs have ________ just as the greasers
do, but Ponyboy does not _________ her.
Chapter 3
"Just
don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too."
Ponyboy, Two-Bit, and Johnny walk to ______-______'s
house with _______ and Marcia so that they can give the girls a ______ home.
As they walk, Ponyboy and Cherry talk about _________'s brothers. He notices how _______ it is to talk to Cherry. When Cherry
asks Ponyboy to describe Darry, he says ________ does not like him and probably wishes he could put Ponyboy in a ______ somewhere.
Johnny and Two-Bit are ________ to hear that Ponyboy feels this way, and ________ says he always thought the three brothers
got along well.
After Ponyboy tells Cherry about Sodapops old _______, Mickey Mouse, the two move on to
______ the differences they ______between Socs and greasers. During this discussion, Ponyboy and Cherry find they have a surprising
amount in ________- for instance, they both like reading and watching _______. Ponyboy voices his __________ that the greasers
have terrible________ while the Socs lead comfortable lives and jump the greasers out of sheer ________. Cherry retorts that
the Socs situations are not as _______ as Ponyboy thinks. They decide that the main __________ between Socs and greasers is
that Socs are too ________ and aloof to acknowledge their _______ and that they live their lives trying to fill up their emotional
void, while the greasers feel everything too _________. Ponyboy realizes that, although they come from different classes,
he and Cherry watch the same ________.
A blue Mustang cruises by the _________. The Mustang belongs to Bob and _______, Cherry's and Marcia's Soc _________. The _________
pulls up beside the group, and Randy and Bob get out. Ponyboy notices that Bob wears three heavy _______ on his hand. The
greasers and Socs nearly get into a _______, but the girls agree to leave with their boyfriends to prevent ________. Before
leaving, Cherry tells Ponyboy that she hopes she won't see ________ again, because
she thinks she could fall in _______ with him.
Ponyboy _________ home and finds Darry furious with him for staying out so ______. In the following argument,
Darry ______ Ponyboy. No one in Ponyboy's family has ever ______ him before, and Ponyboy storms out of the house in a _______.
He feels sure now that Darry does not want him _______. It is after two oclock in the ________. Ponyboy finds Johnny in the
lot where the greasers _______ _______, and he tells Johnny that they are running away. Johnny, who lives with his abusive
alcoholic __________, agrees to run away without hesitating. The boys decide to walk through the park and determine whether
they really want to ______.
Chapter
4
The park is _______ at 2:30 in the morning. Ponyboy and Johnny go _______ beside the fountain.
It is cold out, and Ponyboy is wearing only a ______-________ shirt. Suddenly the boys see the blue _________ from earlier
that night. Five Socs, including Randy and Bob, _______ out of the _______ and approach them. Presumably, the Socs have come
to get even with the boys for picking up their _______. Ponyboy can tell they are ______. Bob tells Ponyboy that greasers
are ______ trash with ______ hair, and Ponyboy retorts that Socs are nothing but white trash with _______ and madras shirts.
In a rage, Ponyboy ______ at the Socs. A Soc grabs Ponyboy and holds his head under the frigid _______ of the ________. Ponyboy
feels himself drowning and ______ out. When he regains consciousness, the Socs have ______ away. He is lying on the pavement
next to Johnny. Bobs bloody _______ is nearby. Johnny says, I killed him, and Ponyboy sees Johnnys switchblade, dark
to the hilt with ______.
Ponyboy _______, but Johnny remains _____. They decide to go to ________, thinking he might be able to help
them. They find Dally at the house of Buck Merril, his rodeo ________. He manages to get the boys _______ dollars, a change
of _______for Ponyboy, and a loaded _______. He instructs them to take a train to Windrixville, where they can hide in an
abandoned ________. Ponyboy and Johnny get on a _______, and Ponyboy goes to sleep. When they get to Windrixville, they hop
off the _______ and find the church, where they collapse into _______sleep.
Chapter 5
"Dally was so
real he scared me."
The next morning, Ponyboy _______ in the church and finds a note from Johnny saying that he has gone into ______ to get _______. When Johnny returns,
he brings a weeks supply of bologna and cigarettes, and a paperback _______ of Gone with the
Wind, which he wants Ponyboy to _______ to him. Ponyboy makes a wisecrack and Johnny tells him he is becoming more
like Two-Bit every day. Johnny insists that they ______ their hair to ______
themselves, and he _______ Ponyboy's hair.
For the next _______, the boys hide out at the church, reading Gone
with the Wind, _______, and eating sandwiches. The boys admire the southern _______ in Gone
with the Wind, and Johnny points out that they remind him of _______. Ponyboy disagrees. He prefers the other ________
to Dally. Most of the greasers remind Ponyboy of the heroes in _______, but Dally is so real he is frightening. Later, Ponyboy
recites a Robert Frost poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay". The poem touches Johnny.
After about _____ days, Dally shows up at the church with a ________ to Ponyboy from Sodapop. Dally says the _______ approached him about Bobs ________ and he told them that the perpetrators fled to ______. He
takes Johnny and Ponyboy to the Dairy _________ and tells them that a state of open warfare exists between the ______ and
the ______ , who are furious about Bobs death. He also lets slip that ________
Valance, feeling responsible for the murderous _________, has been acting
as a _______ for the greasers. He adds that in a days time the two groups will meet for a _________.
Chapter 6
_______ shocks Dally by telling him he wants to go back home and ________ to his crime. Dally tries
to change Johnny's _______, telling him he never wants to see Johnny hardened the way ________ would harden him. Johnny is
adamant and points out that his own parents would not care what ________ to him, but Ponyboys _______ care about him and want
to _____ him. Swearing under his breath, Dally begins to ______ Johnny and Ponyboy home. As they drive past the _______ where
Ponyboy and Johnny have been staying, they see that it is on _____. Ponyboy thinks he and Johnny must have started the fire
with a ______ butt, so the boys jump out of the car to examine the ______.
At the church, they find a group of _________ on a ______. Suddenly, one of the adult chaperones _______
that some of the children are ______, and Ponyboy hears screaming from _______ the church. Acting on instinct, he and Johnny
climb into the burning building through a _______. At the ______ of the church, they find the children _______ together and
terrified. As he runs through the smoky _______, Ponyboy wonders why he is not _______. He and Johnny lift the children out
of the _______. Dally _______ and yells that the roof is about to _____ _____.
As they lift the last child out the window, the roof ________. Johnny ______ Ponyboy
out of the window, and then Ponyboy hears Johnny ________. Ponyboy starts to go ________ in for Johnny, but Dally clubs him
across the back and _______ him out.
When Ponyboy wakes, he is in an ________, accompanied by one of the schoolteachers, Jerry
Wood. The teacher tells him that his _______ caught on fire and that
the jacket he was wearing, which _______ lent him, saved his______. He says that Dally was burned but will probably be _____.
Johnny, however, is in very bad _______ -he was struck by a piece of burning ________ as it fell, and may have broken his
_____. The man jokingly asks Ponyboy if he and Johnny are professional ______. Ponyboy tells him that they are juvenile delinquents.
Ponyboy has suffered ______ burns. Jerry stays with him while he is in the ________, and
Ponyboy confides the story of ______'s death. Jerry agrees that Johnny killed Bob in _______-________. He tells Ponyboy he
shouldnt ______, something that no one has ever said to Ponyboy before. Darry and Sodapop ______. Sodapop hugs Ponyboy, and
Darry ______, shocking Ponyboy. The anger he has felt toward Darry _________. Ponyboy realizes that Darry does care about
him; Darry is strict because he ______ him and wants him to ______. Ponyboy runs across the room and _______ his brother,
thinking that everything will be ______- once he gets home.
Chapter 7
"[G]reasers
will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs. Sometimes I think its the ones in the middle that are really the lucky
stiffs. "
The _________ and ______interview Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry in the hospital waiting ______. Sodapop jokes with
the reporters and ______ staff, keeping the mood light with his antics. The doctors
finally emerge and say that Dally will be fine but that Johnnys back was _______ when the roof caved in. Even
if Johnny survives, they add, he will be permanently _______.
The next morning, Ponyboy is making _______ when Steve Randle (Sodapops best friend) and Two-Bit come in with the morning ________. The papers portray
Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally as _______ for rescuing the ________. They also mention Ponyboys excellent performance on the _______
team and in school. The papers mention that the state will charge Johnny with __________ and send both Ponyboy and Johnny
to juvenile _________, from which Ponyboy might be sent to a boys _______. The other boys reassure Ponyboy that his family
will stay ________. Ponyboy tells them he had his recurring nightmare- which first occurred on the night of his parents funeral-
then the previous night. He never _________ the dream, but it makes him wake up in intense panic.
Ponyboy asks _______ about Sandy and learns that she got pregnant and moved to ________.
Her parents refused to let her _______ Sodapop because of his age, so Sandy left to live with her _________. Sodapop and Darry
go to ________, and Two-Bit and Ponyboy go to get Cokes at the Tasty Freeze. A blue Mustang pulls up to the _______, and in
it they see the group of _______ that jumped Ponyboy and Johnny in the park. Ponyboy feels an immediate and intense _______
for them.
One of the Socs, Marcia's ______, Randy, comes over to Ponyboy. Two-Bit reminds him that no fighting
is allowed before the _______, but Randy says he wants only to ______. He asks Ponyboy why he saved those _______ and says
he would never have thought a ________ could do such a thing. Ponyboy says that it didnt have anything to do with his being
a greaser. Sick about the ________ and Bobs _______, Randy says he does not intend to ______
at the rumble. Randy explains that Bob was his best friend, a good guy with a terrible _______ and overly indulgent parents.
Ponyboy feels reassured by his talk with Randy and realizes that Socs can be human and __________.
Chapter
8
"We
couldn't get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang, and for the same reason. "
Two-Bit and Ponyboy go to _______ Johnny and Dally in the _______. Johnny, weak and pale,
whispers that he would like Ponyboy to ______ reading Gone with the Wind to him.
His _______ shows up to visit, but she is a mean-spirited, nagging ________and Johnny refuses to see her. As Ponyboy and Two-Bit
leave, she _______ them and blames them for Johnnys _________, and Two-Bit insults her.
Dally is recovering nicely in the ________, and for the first time ever Ponyboy feels warmly
toward _______. Dally says that Tim __________, the leader of another gang of greasers, came in to talk about the________.
Dally asks for Two-Bits black-handled ________, and Two-Bit gladly hands over his prized ________ without even asking why
Dally needs it.
On the way home, Ponyboy and Two-Bit see Cherry
Valance in her ________. She says that the _______ have agreed to fight with
no _______. Ponyboy asks her to go see Johnny, but she says she ________ because Johnny killed Bob. She says that Bob had
a ______ side and was only violent when he was ______, as he was when he ______ up Johnny. Ponyboy calls her a ______, but
he quickly ______ her. He asks her if she can see the sunset on the West Side, and when she says she can, he tells her to
________ that he can see it on the East Side too.
Chapter 9
"Stay
gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold. . . ".
Feeling _______ before the rumble, Ponyboy swallows five ________ and struggles to eat his ________. The
boys have bathed and made themselves look ______, and leave for the rumble excitedly. Ponyboy feels a ________ feeling when
he sees the other _______. Tim Shepard's ________and the others
seem like genuine hoods. Twenty-two _______ arrive in four carloads to fight the _______ greasers. Darry steps forward to
start the ______, and Paul Holden, Darry's high school _______ and ________ teammate,
steps up to _______ him. As Paul and Darry circle each other, _______ joins the group. As Dally arrives, the fight breaks
out in full. After a long struggle, the _______ win.
When the _______ ends, Dally and Ponyboy go to the hospital to see ________. A _______
stops them, but Ponyboy feigns an ________, and the officer gives them an escort to the hospital. Ponyboy and Dally find Johnny
_______. Johnny moans that fighting is ________, tells Ponyboy to "[s]tay gold", and then _______. Dally is beside himself
with ________ and runs frantically from the _______.
Chapter
10
After _________'s death, Ponyboy wanders alone for hours until a man offers him a _______.
The man asks Ponyboy if he is ________ and tells him that his _______ is bleeding. Ponyboy feels vaguely ________. At home,
he finds the greasers gathered in the ________ _______ and tells them that Johnny is _______ and that Dally has broken _______.
Dally calls and says he just robbed a ________ _______ and is running from the ______. The gang rushes out and sees police
________ chasing him. Dally pulls out the ________ gun he carries, and the police __________ him. Dally _________ to the ground,
________. Ponyboy muses that Dally _________ to die. Feeling dizzy and overwhelmed, Ponyboy ________ out.
When Ponyboy wakes, ________ is at his side. Ponyboy learns that he got a ________ when a Soc ________ him in
the head during the ________, and that he has been delirious in bed for ______ days.
Chapter 11
Ponyboy is restricted to bed rest for a ________ after he wakes up
from his _______. He finds a picture of ________, the Soc in Sodapops high school ________. Bob's grin reminds him of __________'s.
Ponyboy wonders if Bob's parents ______ him, saying he prefers their hatred to their ________. Looking at the photograph and
remembering conversations with _______ and _________, Ponyboy concludes that Bob was cocky,
hot-tempered, frightened, and ________.
Randy arrives at the _______ to talk to Ponyboy and behaves with shocking ________. Not__________ of
what Ponyboy has suffered, ________ says he is worried about being associated with the ______. They discuss the ________ scheduled
for the next day. Ponyboy, in a _______ state, says that he _______ Bob himself and that Johnny is still _______. Darry asks Randy to _________.
Chapter
12
Ponyboy does not have to ______ much at the hearing, since his ________ has spoken to the judge about
________'s condition. The judge asks Ponyboy a few gentle _______ about his home life and then _______ him of all wrongdoing
and allows him to return _______ with his _______. After the hearing, Ponyboy becomes detached and ________. His _______ suffer,
he loses his coordination, _______, and ________, and he resumes fighting with Darry. Ponyboy's __________ teacher, Mr. Syme, says that although Ponyboy is _________, he can
raise his grade to a C by writing an _________ autobiographical theme.
The next day at ________, Ponyboy goes to the _________ store with Steve and Two-Bit for candy bars and ________. When a group of Socs
accosts him, he _________ them with a broken ________, saying he refuses to take any more of their _________. Ponyboy's uncharacteristic
show of hostility alarms ________ and Two-Bit, and they warn Ponyboy not to grow ________ like _______ was. They are _______
when Ponyboy bends down to pick up the _________ glass, not wanting anyone to get a flat _____.
That night as Ponyboy and _______ fight about Ponyboy's _______, Sodapop runs out of the house, ________
that Sandy has returned a _______ he wrote her unopened. Darry
explains that Sodapop is not the _________ of Sandy's child and acts _______ that _________ never told Ponyboy. Ponyboy reflects
that he probably acted __________ when Sodapop tried to talk about his ______. Worried, Darry and Ponyboy go find Sodapop.
He tells them their constant ________ is tearing him _______. Sobbing, he asks them to try to _________ each other and stop
fighting. They promise to try. Ponyboy thinks that ________ will hold them together.
The boys ______ back home. Ponyboy looks at _________'s copy of Gone with the
Wind. He finds a handwritten ______ from Johnny urging him to stay gold and saying that the _________'s lives were
worth his _______. Ponyboy realizes that he wants to tell the story of his _________ so that other _________ will not nurse
their anger at the world and ignore the _________ in it. He begins to work on his English ________, starting with the words
that begin The Outsiders: "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness
of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."
Main Characters
Ponyboy Curtis
Ponyboy
Curtis, the ___________ member of the greasers, narrates the novel. Ponyboy
theorizes on the motivations and _______of his friends and describes events in a slangy, youthful voice. Though only ________
years old, he understands the way his social group ________ and the role each group member plays. He sees that Two-Bit is the wisecracker, Darry the natural ________, and Dally the
dangerous _______.
Ponyboy dislikes the Socs, whom we see through his viewpoint. The distorting effects of ________ and
group rivalry make his narration less than objective. Ponyboy is young enough to have changeable _________ of people, however,
and over the course of the novel he realizes that Socs have problems just as _______do. He also comes to see that Socs are
even ___________ to the greasers in some ways.
Ponyboy has a literary ______, which Hinton uses to show that poverty does not necessarily mean lack of __________,
and that gang members are not always delinquents. Ponyboy identifies with Pip, the impoverished __________ of Charles Dickenss
Great Expectations, cites the Robert Frost poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, and introduces
Johnny to the southern ________of Margaret Mitchells Southern epic,
Gone with the Wind. With such an awareness of literary _________, Ponyboy sees himself
as he is, as both character and _________. He takes on the narrators work of recounting ____________ and the characters work
of growing and __________ as a result of those events. The novel is not just a story of gang rivalry; it is an account of
Ponyboys _______.
Johnny Cade
Johnny Cade is a vulnerable _______-year-old greaser in a group defined by _________and a sense of
invincibility. He comes from an _________ home, and he takes to the greasers because they are his only reliable ________.
While Johnny needs the greasers, the _________ also need Johnny, for protecting him gives them a sense of _________and justifies
their violent ___________. When Johnny, little and vulnerable, suffers at the hands of the Socs, the greasers feel justified
in their _______ of the rival gang.
Passive and ________, Johnny is the principal catalyst for the major events of the novel. He stands up to Dally
at the ______-____ and tells him to stop harassing the two Soc ______, Cherry and Marcia. Johnnys intervention on the girls behalf _______ the girls,
and they talk and _______ with the greasers. This interaction between female Socs and male greasers sparks the ________ of
the Soc boys and motivates them to ______ Johnny and Ponyboy. Ultimately, Johnnys small acts of _________ lead to murder, death, and heroic rescue. But Johnny ends by _________ out against gang violence,
stating that he would gladly _______ his life for the lives of little ________. Although a gentle boy, he has a profound impact
with his startling, persistent demand for _______. His courage in rescuing the children from the burning _______ and his subsequent
death as a result of injuries sustained in the rescue make him a martyr. Ponyboys decision to write the story that becomes
The Outsiders ensures that Johnnys ___________ will not be forgotten.
Cherry Valance
Before Cherry Valance enters the _______, Ponyboy paints the conflict between the greasers and the
Socs as on that cannot be _________. The introduction of Cherry, however, suggests that individual _________ can chip away
at group hatreds. Cherry gets along perfectly well with _______ of the greasers. She likes Ponyboy and Johnny because they
treat her _______. Dallys rude antics do not ______ her. Her ________ at Dallys behavior suggests that she _______ to Ponyboy and Johnny not because she is slumming and their greaser identity ________ her, but rather because
she likes them as individuals. For a short while at least, she cares more about how each _____ behaves than about his West
Side or East Side _______. Cherry is not just a sweet, simple ______. She finds herself ________ to
Dally, who is crass and unrefined but also sexy to her. Despite all her ________ to the greasers, moreover, she is not completely
free of group ________. She tells Ponyboy she probably will not say ______ to him at school, acknowledging that she respects
______ divisions. Although Cherry plays a relatively small _____ in the novel, the mixed up nature of her sympathies gives
us something to which we can______. She mirrors our own perspective as someone close to the______ who is nevertheless an outsider
and who does not always fully _______ other characters emotions and motivations.
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