The main character of The Outsiders is Ponyboy Curtis. He is 14 years old who lives with his two brothers, Sodapop Curtis and Darry Curtis. His parents sadly died before this book was written, and so he lives with his oldest brother, Darry and Sodapop. Ponyboy has greenish-gray eyes and light brown hair. This could be shown by the following, “I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes”. One of the most important feature in Ponyboy’s body (as claimed by himself) is his hair. He describes his hair with the following sentences, “My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair.”. His hair is important to him because it is part of his identity as a Greaser, because that is the only thing he has to hold on to (or that is what he thinks).
Darry describes Ponyboy as this kid who does not use common sense. He thinks that he is doing great in his education and literature understanding, but sometimes he just does not use the great brain he has. These occasions usually get Ponyboy in trouble that he could dodge so easily. Problems that led to a chain of events in this book that could have easily been stopped. But he changes and evolves as the story progresses. Ponyboy’s educational accomplishments is the one thing that sets him apart from the Greasers, a closely knitted gang that lives in the East and lower class side of town. Ponyboy narrates this book and has a subjective point of view. He perceives people for their appearance rather than their true reality. But he learns that appearances and first impressions are not always the best ones. He also learns that it takes a while to see and learn what a person really is. And that what we learn, is often different than we perceive at first. The most memorable thing about Ponyboy is that he finds a way to live in the world again through writing , and the ability to reach out to other people.
On a side note, Ponyboy also has a ton of friends. His closest friends are the people in his gang, the Greasers. The gang members form an alternate group of family members. He is able to find a sense of safety and security with his friendships and relationships formed within this group, and they help fill in the loss dealt from his parent’s death. But if I would have to choose his best two friends, it would probably be Johnny Cade and Sodapop Curtis. Johnny Cade is first perceived to be the “gang’s pet” and is described as a “lost puppy who has been kicked way too many times”. He has “big black eyes in a dark tanned face”. He was physically and mentally abused by his parents and Ponyboy claimed that “If it hadn’t been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are.”. But in reality, Johnny is brave because he defended his friends against a group (the Socs) that scarred him for life (since they beat the tar out of him), he saved children from a burning church building, and stood up to one of the fiercest members of the Greasers (Dally). The one thing that makes Johnny a memorable character is that his ability to fight any obstacle thrown against him. Starting with the abuse from his parents all the way to having a conscious of killing a person, Johnny has fought it all and still managed to have a genuine smile.
Sodapop Curtis is “movie-star kind of handsome, the kind that people stop on the street to watch go by.”. He has dark brown eyes and dark-gold hair and is not as tall as Darry. He is idolized by Ponyboy because he is the only (with the exception of Johnny) person that really understands Ponyboy. He is also one of the only “true pieces” of family Ponyboy has got left. He is a stable character as the story continues, while Ponyboy is a dynamic character because he changes from start to finish. He dropped out of high school and works at a gas station, but Ponyboy believes that he is smart. Sodapop is memorable because he is the only character that we really follow when it comes to pursuing love. This is because he is in love with Sandy and wants to get married with her, and even though he has the looks and all, she does not get married to him. Ponyboy also has a helper from the “enemy” side, Cherry Valance. She is part of the Socs, a gang that lives in the west side of town and are rich, fancy people, but wants to help Ponyboy out. It is in Chapter 6, in which Cherry tells Ponyboy that she is acting as a “spy” for them and that she needs to help them. This could be shown by the following, “She (Cherry) said she felt that the whole mess was her fault, which it is, and that she’d keep up with what was comin’ off with the Socs in the rumble and would testify that the Socs were drunk and looking for a fight and that you fought back in self-defense.’. Cherry is trying to do what Ponyboy eventually learns to do, which is move beyond fake appearances and tries to act in a way that reveals her “reality” rather than her appearance. The thing that makes Cherry so memorable is that she tries and learns to act in a way to make amends for past violent actions done by the Socs towards the Greasers.
The one person that challenges Ponyboy in the beginning and middle (but not the end) of this book is Darry Curtis. Darry is Ponyboy’s brother “who just could not go to school even with the athletic scholarship he had” (Hinton 15). Ponyboy claims that Darry just hates Ponyboy and just wants to get rid of him. Darry always batters him with comments for things Ponyboy has no control over and acts as if he loves Sodapop more than Ponyboy. This could be shown by the following, “Darry thought I was just another mouth to feed and somebody to holler at. Darry love me? I thought of those hard, pale eyes. Soda was wrong for once, I thought. Darry doesn’t love anyone or anything, except maybe Soda. I didn’t hardly think of him as being human. I don’t care, I lied to myself, I don’t care about him either. Soda’s enough, and I’d have him until I got out of school. I don’t care about Darry. But I was still lying and I knew it. I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”. Darry was a “substitute father” for Ponyboy and even though he was strict on Ponyboy, he just wanted him to be better than what he has. Ponyboy learns this through the following lines, “Darry did care about me, maybe as much as he cared about Soda, and because he cared he was trying too hard to make something of me. When he yelled ‘Pony, where have you been all this time?’ he meant ‘Pony, you’ve scared me to death.
Please be careful, because I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.’”. The Socs were also an obstacle and challenge for Ponyboy. Because of the Socs in the first place, Johnny and Ponyboy had to run away. This eventually led to Johnny’s death and then Dally’s death. The Socs took their money for granted and used their advantage on the social hierarchy against the Greasers. Ponyboy tells us this by the following, “ People don’t ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us. We look hoody and they look decent. It could be just the other way around – half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I’ve heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean – but people usually go by looks.’. Ponyboy just wants to live in a world where society cares about ones true character rather than their appearance, because no one deserves to be perceived to be “lower” than anyone else that may seem “above” them. Everyone is equal, no matter how big or small ones appearance and mentality may be.
