Loyalty is told in many ways. Most of the time if you ask someone what loyalty meant to them, they would tell you “it’s standing by your own, and standing up for your family, friends, and most important yourself. In the novel “The Outsiders” by S. E. Hinton. Hinton describes the loyalty in her novel. The main protagonist Pony-boy and his best-friend Johnny set the perfect example of loyalty. Johnny has committed a massive crime. Pony-boy and Johnny are now on the run. “You really killed him huh Johnny? ” ( Hinton 57). “I had to. They were drowning you, Pony They might have killed you. ” Chapter 4, pg. 7 (Hinton 57). Even after Johnny had, did what he had done Pony-boy was still determined to not leave his friend behind. Also when Dally helped then get away with money and self-protection. When they reached their destination, Pony-boy wakes in the church and finds a note from Johnny saying that he has gone into town to get supplies. When Johnny returns, he brings a week’s supply of baloney and cigarettes, and a paperback copy of “Gone with the Wind”, which he has always wanted Pony-boy to read to him. Pony-boy knew in order to protect his friend he’d had to give up his most prized possession his hair.
Johnny insists that they cut their hair to disguise themselves, and he bleaches Pony-boy’s hair. Dally had a letter for Ponyboy from his older brother Soda-pop. In the letter explained how much they miss Ponyboy and how Darry, Ponyboy’s eldest brother was sorry for the way he treated Pony-boy right before Johnny and Pony-boy had the Evans 2 encounter with the Socs. Johnny tells Dally and Pony-boy that he wants to turn him self in. At the church, Johnny, Pony-boy, and Dally find a group of schoolchildren on a picnic. When Pony-boy wakes, he is in an ambulance, accompanied by one of the schoolteachers, Jerry Wood.
Jerry Wood had told Pony-boy, his back caught on fire and that the jacket he was wearing, (Dally’s jacket), had saved his life. Pony-boy has mild burns. Jerry had stayed with him while he is in the hospital, and Pony-boy confides the story of Bob’s death. Just by not even knowing Pony-boy loyalty still occurs between Jerry Wood and Pony-boy. Darry and Soda-pop arrive. Pony-boy is loyal to his family and friends as they are to him. The reporters and police interview Pony-boy, Soda-pop, and Darry in the hospital waiting room. Soda-pop jokes with the reporters and hospital staff, keeping the mood light with his antics.
The doctors finally come to Pony-boy and his brothers and tell them that Dally will be fine but that Johnny’s back was broken from the roof caved in. In loyalty Pony-boy stays with Johnny night and day, the doctors tell him even if Johnny does survive he will remain permanently crippled from waist down. Pony-boy asked Soda-pop about Sandy. Soda-pop tells him that he got her pregnant and moved to Florida, and that her parents refused to let her marry Soda-pop because of his age, so Sandy left to live with her grandmother. One of the Socs, Marcia’s boyfriend, Randy, comes over to Pony-boy.
Even though one killed the other Evans 3 loyalty for what Pony-boy and Johnny did for the children in the burning church. “We couldn’t get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang, and for the same reason. ” (Hinton ). Pony-boy goes to the hospital everyday with two-bit to see Dally and Johnny. One day on the home form the hospital Pony-boy and Two-Bit see Cherry Valance in her Corvette. Pony-boy calls Cherry a traitor, but he quickly forgives her. “Being close to death affords Johnny a new perspective on life, one that is different from that of other greasers.
He realizes not only that violence is futile but also, more important, that it doesn’t have to make up his whole identity. ” ( Hinton ). “As Dally arrives, the fight breaks out in full. After a long struggle, the greasers win. ” ( Hinton ). As this occurs Dally does not turn his back on his gang. This is loyalty. Pony-boy and Dally find out Johnny dying. Johnny moans that fighting is useless, tells Pony-boy to “stay gold,” (Lalita 57). and then dies. After Johnny’s death, Pony-boy wanders alone for hours until a man offers him a ride. The gang rushes out and sees police officers chasing him. Dally pulls ut the unloaded gun he carries, and the police shoot him. Dally collapses to the ground, and is pronounced dead. Feeling sick and overwhelmed, Pony-boy passes out. “After Pony-boy wakes, Darry is at his side” (Hinton ). Family will always remain loyal and Pony-boy knows that he will always have his brothers to count on. Pony-boy has a concussion when a Soc kicked him in the head during the rumble. Also he has been delirious for three days. Pony-boy feels this tension within him before the fight. Evans 4 “His instincts tell him to skip the rumble, as he knows in his heart that violence won’t solve anything.
His hesitation after speaking with Randy and his decision to take five aspirin before the fight show that he is emotionally and physically unprepared for the ordeal. Nevertheless, Pony-boy ignores his instincts and goes through with the fight because he wants to please his social group. ” (Hinton ). Even when he can’t fight Pony-boy still does not leave his own and stands by them through all. This is the loyalty that is standing by your own. New trauma and by Pony-boy’s worries about Johnny and the greaser-Soc rumble. Disasters has ended and that a period of reflection can finally begin. Looking at the photograph and remembering conversations with Cherry and Randy, Pony-boy concludes that Bob was cocky, hot-tempered, frightened, and human. The boys run back home. Pony-boy looks at Johnny’s copy of Gone with the Wind. He finds a handwritten note from Johnny urging him to “stay gold and saying that the children’s lives were worth his own” (Hinton ). Pony-boy makes the decision wants to tell the story of his friends so other kids his age, older or, younger should not nurse their anger at the world and to not ignore the beauty in it.
Hinton suggests that “Pony-boy has found a way to come to a stop of the preventable violence in his life. Pony-boy’s willingness to examine his painful past sets up the last stage in his recovery and to achieve the potential goal that Darry has seen in him. ” (Hinton ). Loyalty is told in many ways, people will tell you this: “it’s standing by your own, and standing up for your family, friends, and most important yourself. ” But more its standing up for your beliefs.
