THE OUTSIDERS
Avery Leloup — Grade 8
The Outsiders : A Timeless Novel That Failed to Treat Women Well
When an author writes a book , their own opinions and biases tend to be present . In S . E . Hinton ’ s novel The Outsiders , this happens at a large level . Throughout the entire novel , there are only three female characters : Cherry , Marcia , and Sandy — all of whom only play small , unimportant roles in the plot and are subject to being shown negatively . It is very evident that in The Outsiders , there are no positively portrayed women .
One of the three female characters , Cherry Valence , had an overall negative look towards her . This is seen in multiple ways : firstly , when Cherry and Marcia have to go home with their boyfriends , Cherry tells Ponyboy “‘… if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don ' t say hi , well , it ' s not personal or anything , but …’” ( Hinton 45 ). She tells Ponyboy this after having a genuine conversation with him and connecting with him on a deep level . The past chapter would have made the reader believe that Cherry was better than the average soc and held no ill-will to greasers as long as they were kind . But this belief was crushed the moment she valued her own reputation over her friendships . It ’ s no secret throughout the course of the book that reputation is important to socs — in fact , the movie shows how Cherry only stared at Ponyboy instead of waving because she was with her friends — but the fact is , none of the other socs were shown caring so much about their own reputation but Cherry , a woman .
Another way Cherry Valance had a negative look was with her crush on Dally . This is seen when Cherry is saying goodbye to Ponyboy in the middle of chapter 3 and says “‘ I could fall in love with Dallas Winston ,’ she said . ‘ I hope I never see him again , or I will .’” ( Hinton 46 ). Despite having a boyfriend , she almost falls in love with the man who had been harassing her for almost half a chapter . It makes her seem even more shallow than the earlier piece of dialog did . On top of that , her liking Dally doesn ’ t add anything to the plot and only portrays her more negatively for no good reason . This leads me to believe that S . E . Hinton purposefully chose to portray Cherry very negatively for no reason other than her own biases .