The Definition of a Family

When you look up the definition of a family you will find… “A basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group whether dwelling together or not, the traditional family”. However in the story of “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton it shows that not all families have to be blood related to be classified as family.
The story of the outsiders is about a gang, called the greasers that pretty much don’t have family or anybody to guide them. They have each other. They come from all different backgrounds. For some their parents died for others their parents didn’t care about them. The story problem is the fighting between the Socs and the greasers. Their fighting goes on to the more extreme as the book goes on. Although one thing that never changes in this book is the loyalty and brotherliness that the gang members treat each other with.
For example in the story the main character in the story and the narrator is a young teenage boy named poneyboy. His loyalty is to his gang and his brothers (who are also in the gang). Then there is Johnny, Ponyboys best friend, his parents never cared about him so he decided that his loyalty belongs to the gang, the greasers. In one part of the story Johnny and Ponyboy are being attacked by socs they take Ponyboy and try to drown him by forcing his face in water. Johnny was not known for really being a fighter, but to save his best friend he stabbed and killed one of the lead socs. Johnny killed a Soc to save not only his best friend but a gang member. Johnny stands up for his gang like their family, and to him the Greasers are family.
There were very many times in the story when the Greasers acted like family to each other. One of the times when another Greaser acted like family to another was when Ponyboy and Johnny ran into a burning church to save some people and another greaser by the name of Dally ran into the fire to try to get them to come back. Dally is a pretty rough guy, one of the more ruthless Greasers but in this case you know he cares about them because he ran into a fire to try to get them to come back. If he did not think of those two to be like family to him he would not have risked his life to try to get Ponyboy and Johnny to come back.
I chose this topic because I wanted people to know what the real definition of a family is. When the thought of family comes up most people would think of the perfect all American family where there is a mom a dad and the kids. But that doesn’t have to be family. Family can be anybody that cares about you and is there for you when times are tough. In the story of “The Outsiders” the Greaser gang was a group of kids that got into a lot of trouble they had no blood families to go to, they had each other. They would care for each other, and they would watch out for each other that is what family is.