The Outsiders - Characters
This 14-year-old Curtis brother is known for his intelligence and his love of sunsets.
Ponyboy
The Outsiders explores this social divide between different economic classes throughout the story.
Class conflict
This rhetorical device uses words or phrases with similar sounds at the beginning of nearby words, like "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
Alliteration
This scientist becomes obsessed with creating life and builds a creature from dead body parts.
Victor Frankenstein
What is it called when the text tells the actors what is happening and how they are to behave?
The tough leader of the Greasers who takes on a parent role for his brothers after their parents' death.
Darry
This novel's title itself symbolizes those who don't fit into society, particularly the Greasers and their struggle for identity.
Alienation and Marginalisation
A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as," such as "brave as a lion."
Simile
The creature is seeking this from Victor Frankenstein, feeling abandoned and rejected by his creator.
Revenge
Victor's growing madness and obsession with destroying his creature builds this element throughout the play, creates what?
Tension
This Soc girl secretly sympathises with the Greasers and acts as a spy for them, telling Ponyboy "Things are rough all over."
Cherry Valance
The deaths of Johnny and Dally represent the loss of this for young people trapped in cycles of poverty and violence.
Hope
This device repeats words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses for emphasis, as in "Never give up. Never back down. Never surrender."
Anaphora
Victor's close friend who falls victim to the creature's rage on Victor's wedding night.
Henry Clerval
When Agnes cannot see the monster, but we can, what technique is this?
Dramatic irony
The sensitive greaser with a troubled past whose death ultimately brings the Curtis brothers closer together.
Johnny Cade
This natural phenomenon appears throughout the novel and represents hope and beauty in a harsh world.
The sunset
This three-part repetitive structure creates rhythm and power, like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Tricolon / Triplet / Rule of Three
The creature's tragic desire for this leads him to seek Victor's companionship and eventual destruction of all he loves.
Love, acceptance and belonging.
Victor's relentless pursuit of the creature across frozen wastelands represents this dramatic technique of escalating action.
Climax
This Curtis brother works as a high school dropout and serves as a bridge between Ponyboy and Sodapop, representing the middle ground.
Johnny Cade's advice to "stay gold" symbolizes the importance of preserving this quality in oneself and others.
Innocence
This rhetorical inversion swaps the structure of successive phrases, such as "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Chiasmus
This theme of unchecked ambition and the consequences of playing god drives Victor's tragic downfall throughout the play.
The danger of scientific hubris or unchecked ambition.
The play's repeated theme that appearance does not determine worth or capability demonstrates this dramatic message about human nature.
The play's central thesis or theme about prejudice and acceptance.