The Outsiders — Chapter 5

About This Passage

This is one of the most beautiful passages in the whole novel, and Hinton has put it right in the middle of the boys' hardest week. They are cold. They are scared. They are hiding in an old broken church on top of a hill because Johnny has killed somebody and the police are looking for them. And in the middle of all that fear, the sun comes up and turns the whole valley gold. Notice how Hinton makes the mist into something almost alive — pieces of it 'break off' and 'float away.' Notice how she lets the colors arrive in order: gray, then pink, then gold. This is the kind of beauty you can only see when you have been quiet long enough to watch it. Ponyboy is the kind of boy who can see beauty like this, and very soon — in just a few minutes of story time — he is going to share it with Johnny by saying a poem out loud. The chapter is about how friends can give each other the world by helping each other notice it.

Narration Prompt

Tell Chapter 5 in your own words. Begin with Ponyboy waking up alone in the cold church and finding Johnny's note in the dust ('Went to get supplies. Be back soon. J.C.'), describe the supplies Johnny brought back including the paperback copy of Gone with the Wind, walk through the part where Johnny cuts Ponyboy's hair and bleaches it so the police won't recognize them, tell about the hard cry the boys had together, then jump to the long quiet days reading Gone with the Wind out loud, the morning Pony said the Robert Frost poem ('Nothing gold can stay') to Johnny while the sun came up, and end with Dally arriving in Buck's T-bird, the letter from Sodapop, and the Dairy Queen meal where they hear that all of Tulsa is now at war between Socs and greasers because of what happened.

Discussion Questions

1. What in the story shows you that Ponyboy and Johnny were really cold in the church? Find at least two things Hinton says about how the boys tried to keep warm. How do you know cold is one of the hardest parts of running away?
2. How do you know that Johnny had never really noticed pretty things like clouds and the sunrise before he met Ponyboy? What does Johnny say to Pony about colors and clouds and stuff that lets you know? How can you tell from Johnny's words that being friends with Pony has changed the way Johnny sees the world?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide