Analysis Of The Outsiders

Most people in the world are misunderstood at some point in their life. However, if other people’s perceptions of a person create a reputation, it can camouflage their real traits. Dallas (Dally) Winston is a victim of this. A character in the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Dally is commonly known for being a tough ruthless guy who doesn’t care about anybody but himself. He’s a great fighter and is very confident, but because of his past, it seems his real qualities have been masked. Even though Dallas Winston’s friends misunderstood him to be a cold-hearted and tough person, his experiences and how he treats his friends reveals his loving, self-reliant, and dependable nature.

A very important comparison Dally and Johnny have is their parents. Johnny’s parents do not care about him. They either beat him or ignore him completely. “His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him” (12). His parents are alcoholics and do not care if he comes home or not. Likewise, Dally parents also do not care about him. If he was put in jail by age ten, then his parents clearly do not care enough to discipline him. He rarely talks about his parents, but when he does, he has nothing nice to say. “‘Shoot, my old man don’t give a hang whether I’m dead in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter’” (88). Dally talks about his father with disgust, like he never did anything for him, which may be true. The way Dally’s parents and Johnny’s parents both do not care about them makes these two characters very similar.

In the book Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, there is a character named Dally who is often very rebellious. He commits any crime that would give him thrills and shows savage pride in the fights he won. Although Dally seems “tough” and bold on the outside, he is far from being gallant. He shows signs of vulnerability as he lacks a lot of knowledge and skills that are vital in creating a balanced life.

This causes Dally to become reckless and finally ending in him being killed by the police, Ponyboy tells the reader “Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.” (p.187). From this the reader can gather how the events had modified Dally, creating a more emotional and caring character, weakening his value for himself and in return, strengthening his value for others.

Another reader may say that Dally is gold and only acts the way he does to get through hard situations, but he isn’t gold for a number of reasons. One of them is his behavior and how the novel shows how acts around others. In the movie theater, instead of letting himself and others enjoy the show, he chooses to do the opposite. The book says, “He put his feet up on the back of the redhead’s chair, winked at me, and beat his own record for saying something dirty”(Hinton, p. 21). I

As a young adult, it is difficult to grow up without parents and still be tough and brave. In addition, teens can be emotional and overreact at times. In the novel The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton, a fourteen-year-old kid named Ponyboy Curtis feels different emotions that make him stand out from other Greasers, or “hoodlums”. Ponyboy, the youngest of all the Greasers, is a great example of a teen who feels isolated, brave, and emotional throughout the novel.

Firstly, Dally had a breaking point. Dally’s breaking point was losing Johnny. This showed that he cared about what was happening to Johnny. The group of greasers talked while Johnny had passed away and got a call from Dally, they didn’t think that Johnny had a breaking point. It means that he cared too much about Johnny. You don’t reach something like a breaking point over nothing, it is usually about something you intensely care about or is important to you. Dally was uncaring about most things. In the book, the greasers had said that Dally hadn’t cared about many things, but he deeply cared about Johnny. He is mostly portrayed as unfeeling, but this was proof that he wasn’t always like that. He thought that death was easier than dealing with the pain of his loss. Pain is the key word in that sentence, he had felt pain. He

The Outsiders is about the Greasers and the Socs seeing their differences in a new way and learning that they aren’t as different as they think. The theme of “The Outsiders” is ‘crossing over the gap between the rich and the poor’. The author conveys this through character, symbols and events. S.E. Hinton shows the theme by everyone having their own personal suffering.

Johnny hates fighting most of them all. He will always do the right thing never getting into fights except for when he was jumped. Johnny said to Dally and Pony that fighting is “‘Useless... fighting's no good....”’(148). Johnny was disappointed in them for fighting the soc’s he disagrees with all fighting. Unlike Johnny, Dally loves to fight.Dally is a tough greaser who does not waste anytime creating a problem if he has the opportunity. Dally is always looking to start a problem with the police and other people. The matter of facts, even his friends try their hardest to stay on his friendly side. Ponyboy says of Dallas, “One time, in a dime store, a guy told him to move over at the candy counter. Dally had turned around and belted him so hard it knocked a tooth loose. A complete stranger, too” (24). Dally has a bad temper, and he is not afraid to fight with anyone. Most of the time he will find ways to break laws randomly. Looking up to what I have stated you can tell they are two completely different people at

This is evident as he has a reputation for mischief and getting in trouble. When Dally went to see Ponyboy and Johnny after they ran away, he explained what was happening in their home town. He tells them that the police brought him into answer a few questions about what he knew. Ponyboy asks why he got called in and Dally responds saying, "them boys at the station know me by now." (Hinton 82). Therefore, it is clear Dally is rebellious because if the cops know who he is and bring him in for questioning about a murder then he must have been in trouble more than once. Before that happens, Dally seperates from Johnny and Pony at the movies. Later Two-Bit asks where he went and Ponyboy replies with, “He went hunting some action-booze or dames or fight. I hope he don't get jailed again. He just got out." (Hinton 29) This demonstrates that Dally is rebellious because he is always in trouble and his friends say he is mostly in jail. Even though Dally is rebellious and is usually getting himself into mischief, everyone in their gang respects him and need him to complete their group of

One thing you can grasp from his death and this detail is the cops killed Dally because they shot him but in the example given it shows he knew what hes was doing, so basically Dally wanted to die. Another example is Dally never went on a rampage and robbed from that grocery store the cops wouldn’t have been searching for him. According to “The Outsiders” on page 153 its says “ It was Dally. He phoned from a booth. He just robbed a grocery store and the cops are after him.”

In this novel, Dally is also very hardened. His time in New York, his multiple crimes an

“ When you’re in a gang, you stick up for them for the members.”(Hinton 26) Ponyboy’s first act of loyalty was sticking up for Dally to the Soc girls when they were talking about him at the drive in. Ponyboy liked Dally the least. But, he was apart of the greaser gang and he was going to stick up for him no matter what.They were like brothers and you stand up for your brothers. “He’d leave you alone if he knew you, I said and that was true” (Hinton 65) He had know that Dally wasn’t the nicest, but if you had been close to him he would protect you and stand up for you. He is also a very good friend and a good gang member.

Dally does not follow the rules at all and is a hoodlum. While Ponyboy was explaining what Dally is like he says, “ . . . but Dally hated to do things the legal way. He liked to show that he didn't care whether there was a law or not. He went around trying to break laws”(20). Dally never likes to follow the law and he ,again, goes to jail at the age of ten. Johnny on the other hand follows the rules most out of the gang. Ponyboy is explaining about how Johnny got jumped and says, “Johnny, who was the most law-abiding of us, now carried in his back pocket a six-inch switchblade”(34). While Ponyboy explains to us how Johnny is super scared from how he gets jumped and he explains that Johnny was the most “law abiding” of the gang. Johnny likes to the follow the rules the most. Dally and Johnny are a lot different because Dally does not like to follow the rules at all and Johnny follows the rules the

Fracis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” (1983) is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by E.Hinton published in 1967. There are many theories that can be found throughout the movie, victim precipitation theory, differential association theory, strain theory and labeling theory are the most prevalent. The story takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma and revolves around the story of a 14 year old Greaser named Ponyboy Curtis. The town is split into two conflicting adolescent groups, the Greasers and the Socs. The Greasers are of lower class standings with harsh upbringings, poor kids from the wrong side of town (north) and are considered delinquents. The Socs, are privileged kids living on the south side who have an easy life where everything