On The Outsiders From Durkheim's Cause-and-Effect Theory Of Social Facts

Susan Eloise Hinton began to write The Outsiders at the age of fifteen. This novel presents us authentic gang fights and vivid mental development of the teenagers. What's more, for the first time, Hinton touches the deep world of the wild kids in the poor blocks and bitterly denounces the discrimination and persecution which the rich kids applied to the poor ones. Ever since the year 1967 when the book got published, it aroused a great shock among the young adults, and it was considered an anti-traditional and revolutionary young adult book. Hinton presents a large number of social issues in this novel. These social issues happen to echo with the term"social facts"in the sociological theory of a French sociologist Emile Durkheim. This thesis tries to apply the cause-and-effect theory of social facts to the analysis of this novel.In The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method, Durkheim put forward the term"social facts."He regards these social facts as his specific research object of sociology. They can be observed and are independent from individuals. They will not change according to the changes of individuals and they are more sustainable than individuals. Also in The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method, Durkheim supposes that the reason for one social fact should be searched among the social surroundings. That's to say, the cause of one social fact should be found in another existing social facts, rather than in individual awareness. This is Durkheim's famous cause-and-effect theory of social facts.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part gives a very brief introduction to Hinton and her work The Outsiders, and summarizes the situation of the current studies on this novel. Also in this part, the central argument of the thesis is put forward.Chapter one firstly introduces Durkheim's sociology theory, explaining two terms applied to this thesis: social facts and cause-and-effect theory of social facts. Durkheim points out that the social facts can be social behaviors, social emotions and social thoughts imposed on individuals by the outer force. In addition, he continues to point out that social facts can and can only be caused by and explained with other social facts.Chapter two is the study of the'the outsiders'among the social facts. In this part, the author puts forward seven social facts reflected in the novel. Chapter three analyzes the causes of'the outsiders'. Firstly it explains the cause and effect of those social facts and then stresses that it is these social facts that make them'the outsiders.'The last part serves as a conclusion, which reviews the social facts in the novel, and also in this part, the significance and value of the thesis are reinforced.