The Stereotype

Authors note:I wrote this essay to complete four of my goals in organization. This essay also explains how stereo types affect others and what one is.

Do you have a role model that is perfect in something that you like? You may not know this but, that is a stereo type. A stereo type is something or someone who represents an idea or product. There are many types of stereo types. For example in the book the “Outsiders” by S.E Hinton, Dally would be the ideal stereo type of the greasers. This is because he has a jail record, wears ripped jeans and has greasy hair and is good at fighting. Another example of a stereo type would be Cherry. The hone example of a Soc because she is admirable, wears lots of jewelry, and drives classy cars.

Yes there all types of stereo types but there are also tons of ways stereo types affect people. One of the most common ways of a stereo type would affect someone would be either negative or positive. A negative way would be, for example a Nazi stereo type would be a German with mustache and hat, with a gun that looks angry and hurtful. This could affect you negatively if you are against war and you did not like guns. This could affect you positively if you are a Nazi and like scaring people around the world. In the book the outsiders a stereo type would be Dally. Dally affected the greasers positively because it showed them who they are. It affected the socs and public negatively because of his jail record and what evil people they must be.

There are also other books that have stereo types even evil ones like “Blood Red Horse” by K.M Grant on page176 It says “Kamail is the perfect example of my Muslim warrior’s because he is noble, sleek, and cunning I hope that he will be the one for my throne.” Although other books have stereo types I think that the “outsiders” explains it the best because she shows how they are the main stereo types over and over again throughout the whole book on purpose and sometimes not on purpose.88 For example on page 11 it says. (He had quite a reputation. They had a file on him down at the police station. He had been arrested. He got drunk, he rode in rodeos, lied, cheated, stole, rolled drunks, jumped small kids, he did everything . I didn’t like him, but he was smart and you had to respect him.). This explains how he acts and what a greaser acts. It later goes on to say how Dally is the perfect stereo type for the greasers how she explained so well.

Even though she explained the types of stereo types amazingly, I think she over did it a little because she kept repeating how Dally was the perfect fit for the greaser model. A few times in the book I thought I was listening to the radio, when the announcer keeps saying that “In case you just joined us…” Then repeating what has gone on earlier. Just a personal thought but, I don’t think that people just start reading on random pages in books. This however could be a good thing if you were reading in a group. But over all I think that stereo types in this book affected negatively because the stereo types just made the groups(socs/greasers) hate each other even more. That is why stereo types in this book are affecting negatively.

By Tyler Hull