I first read The Outsiders when I was in middle school. When asked what I thought about the novel I told my 7^th grade teacher that it was, quote, “dated.” I did not dig through the text looking for hidden meanings and when I compared it to other texts we read for class, I thought The Outsiders paled in comparison.

Approximately a decade later, my views have changed. As an adult, I find S.E. Hinton’s novel timely, yet problematic. Her work is timely in that she writes of a world steeped in class differences and violence. However, her simplistic representation of class differences between the Socs and the Greasers and her suggestion that everyone suffers from similar problems reinforces inequality. With lines like, “Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset” (35) and “It seemed funny to me that Socs—if these girls were any example—were just like us” (33), S.E. Hinton ignores the systemic problems that created the inequality in the first place.

Suggesting that everyone suffers from problems does little to address the disproportionate nature of the difficulties each class faces. For instance, whereas Randy feels “lousy” about letting his father down, Ponyboy is concerned about being placed in a foster home. Although both problems, they differ remarkably in scale.

As an adult, I still find S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders wanting, but for a very different reason.