preview

Loyalty In The Outsiders

Decent Essays

“When you’re in a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don’t stick up for them, stick together, make like brothers, it isn’t a gang anymore” (Page 26). Ponyboy states this in the novel called The Outsiders. Loyalty is important because it builds strong relationships. Trust and loyalty are important qualities in a friendship. Ways to show loyalty are are by standing up for your friends, by sticking together, and by helping each other. One way to show loyalty is by standing up for your friends and fighting for them. In the novel, Johnny Cade stood up for Ponyboy by killing Bob, the Social when Bob’s gang attempted to drown Ponyboy. When Johnny fought for Ponyboy, it showed that he was courageous and loyal. He showed loyalty by not running away when his friend was hurt, while Bob’s friends ran away when Bob was stabbed. “I had to. They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you” (Page 57). Johnny said this to explain why he committed the murder, which is …show more content…

Without these two extremely important qualities, a friendship won’t work out well and the two probably won’t get along because they both know that if they tell each other anything, their so-called friend will tell someone else. They both also know that they can’t trust the other person to help them during tough times. In the novel The Outsiders, Ponyboy and his friends were loyal to each other. One person that wasn’t loyal in the book was Cherry. “Ponyboy… I mean… if I see you in the hall at school or someplace and don’t say hi, well it’s not personal or anything” (Page 45). Later in the novel, Cherry helped Ponyboy’s gang because she hated fights. This shows that Cherry Valance isn’t loyal to anyone. She is a traitor to her own kind, which are the Socials, and she’s not loyal to Ponyboy’s

Get Access