The Outsiders — Chapter 7

About This Passage

This passage shows how Sodapop helps his family through a hard hospital night — by clowning. While Pony is sick with worry about Johnny and Darry is trying to control reporters, Soda turns the room into a small comedy: stealing press hats, pretending to interview nurses, almost taking a policeman's gun. His grinning is not silly carelessness. It is his way of caring. He cannot fix Johnny's broken back or the threat of being separated from his brothers, but he can keep the room from sinking under the weight of bad news. Notice how Hinton ends the paragraph with one short sentence: 'Soda can make anyone grin.' That one line is the chapter's quiet tribute to Soda's gift.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 7 in your own words. Cover the hospital waiting room scene with the reporters and the doctor's hard news about Johnny and Dally; Pony falling asleep in the car and being carried to bed; the morning breakfast with Two-Bit and Steve; the newspaper headline 'JUVENILE DELINQUENTS TURN HEROES'; the threat of being placed in a boys' home; the news about Sandy moving to Florida; and the long conversation with Randy at the Tasty Freeze. End with Pony's thought, 'Socs were just guys after all.' What does this chapter add to the story that the action chapters could not?

Discussion Questions

1. What in the story shows that Sodapop has a different way of dealing with hard moments than Pony or Darry? How can you tell from his actions in the hospital that humor is his way of helping?
2. What makes you think Randy chose to talk to Pony — a kid he had never spoken to before — instead of his own friends? How do you know from the text that Randy is searching for something his Soc friends cannot give him?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide