Loss of Innocence

Author’s Note: This is an essay about the loss of innocence of some characters in The Outsiders.

Have you ever felt that you or someone that you know has lost their innocence? Well in the book The Outsiders there are some characters that lose their innocence along the way. There are many different way that you can lose your innocence. But one of the easiest ways is to do something against the law. Even though there is way more than one way to lose your innocence one of the biggest and easiest ways is to break the law.

First of all what I was saying was that in The Outsiders there is one character for sure that loses his innocence. That character is Johnny. He loses his innocence because he does something against the law. Guess what he did? He killed someone! That happened one night in the book after the boys came back from the movies with the two girls. Johnny and Ponyboy fell asleep in the park. Then when they woke up Johnny took Ponyboy home and then Darry, Ponyboy’s brother slapped him for not being home earlier, so then he ran off.

Later after he ran off Johnny and Ponyboy were sitting in the park and the Socs came up. They walked over and then they started drowning Ponyboy so then Johnny stabbed the leader of the Socs, Bob who was the person drowning Ponyboy. So then Johnny had no choice it was the first weapon of self defense that popped into his head. He had to stop them from killing/hurting the both of them, because they were outnumbered and definitely outmatched. So he had to kill him. Then that was the turning point of his innocence.

Another example of loss of innocence in The Outsiders when the author explains when Dally was a little boy about 10 years old he lived in New York City. He got in all sorts of trouble. With gangs, guns and all sorts of things like that he had to go to jail early in his life so he didn’t lose his innocence by being in the Greasers like Johnny did, he lost it way before he ever was a Greaser. So it’s not like being a Greaser affected his choices. It was the way that he ended up going with his life that affected his loss of innocence.

Now there can be many ways to lose your innocence. But the most often and the most used way to lose your innocence even if you didn’t mean to like Johnny it is by breaking the law. Some people would say that Dally lost his innocence on purpose but in the book it gives no detail. So it could go either way, he lost it on purpose because that was the path that he chose for his life, or it could be on accident because the gangs could have forced him to do that but we don’t know. Most people lose their innocence by breaking the law on accident but some people could just be coco in the head and do it on purpose.