In the opening chapter of " Always Outnumbered" Walter Mosley presents us with his view of the world. It is a world that is hard and cruel. It also is a world that has beauty and pleasure in it. In Always Outnumbered the main character Socrates sees how the world can be cruel. Socrates lives in a shack with hardly any furniture. Socrates was inprisoned for murdering a man and raping a woman. The fact that he was in prison for murder is the biggest cruelty because it will be hard for him to get he's life together. In on chapter Socrates meets a young man named darryl who is just like him, hard headed. Darryl is a young man who has already killed a boy and is on the road to failure. Darryl's father was killed in jail and his mother works, so Darryl is on the street hustling to make ends meet. Socrates takes Darryl into his home because Darryl killed his rooster and socrates wanted to know why. They talked, then Socrates tells Darryl to pluck the rooster so that they can eat it. While plucking the rooster, Socrates is showing the beauty of life. He feels just because you live in a shack dose not mean that you have to eat out of cans.