Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Lukasz


Johnny never flinched when his parents hit him, even though it was fatally depressing him mentally.
Johnny is a character in The Outsiders, a fiction novel about life in gangs, written by S.E. Hinton. The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy, is also a fiction novel about a mans tragic life. Even though these books have similarities about abuse, they are actually quite different.
The books Mayor of Casterbridge and The Outsiders are similar because they are fictional, they cover the subject of alcohol abuse, and explore poor and mistreating family situations. In the Mayor of Casterbridge the drunken man, Michael Henchard, sells his wife and only child and becomes psychologically broken. The Outsiders shows alcohol abuse when a gang becomes drunk, start a fight, and people are hurt. Michael Henchard in Mayor of Casterbridge has a broken relationship with his daughter. Beaten by his parents, Johnny in The Outsiders abhors his family and finds refuge in a gang.
The books Mayor of Casterbridge and The Outsiders are different because of their settings, their type of narration, and their storyline. In the Mayor of Casterbridge, the storyline is about one person, Michael Henchard, who loses something dear to him. Then he tries to correct himself but dies of jealousy. In this book, the narration is by third person. The setting is in a rural village, during the 1800s in England. For The Outsiders, the storyline is of a conflict between races and classes. It is a story of a whole gang and not just focusing on one person. The narration of this book is in first person. The setting of The Outsiders is in a large town during the 1950s in the USA. The Outsiders takes place in twenty days while The Mayor of Casterbridge covers the main characters whole life.
So I conclude this review by saying that these books have a few similarities, but are actually quite different. These books explore different cultures. In England life is more formal than in the U.S. In the U.S, etiquette is not as strict as in England. If you come to someones house, people would expect you to be more polite in England then in the U.S. I would recommend both books because you learn about human nature and that grownups are not perfect.