Ponyboys Identity Analysis

Ponyboy is gold. He is helpful and smart, but he’s a greaser and well that’s fine to some people...to others it’s just not acceptable. Even though Ponyboy and Johnny hit the road after Bob was killed he still deserved better. Ponyboy had potential and he is going places, I can tell. Ponyboy has had many losses in his life, Mom, Dad, Johnny, and Dally, but he is strong. That’s all he is going to need to be.

In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. HINTON the main character Ponyboy’s identity changes multiple times over the text. In the beginning of the story Ponyboy was introduced as a greaser, a greaser is someone who is usually poorer than the middle class and like to screw around and start gang fights and they are considered hoods as stated on pages 2-3, “We’re poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we’re wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace almost like hoods.” this shows that even though the Socs are much more wild the greasers are still considered the bad crazy hood people. Ponyboy didn’t like being a greaser

In the book the outsiders Ponyboy is the main character. He is mainly distinctive from the rest of the characters by his physical traits and by his actions. Ponyboy was harassed several times by the Socs just because he was a greaser. Overall Ponyboy didn't use his head before he his actions. It caused him to get into many accidents such as when he was jumped in the beginning of the story because he walking home from the movie theaters by himself. Not only did Ponyboy not use his head he also was altruistic. An example of this is when he ran into the burning church to save kids even though it could have killed him.

However, they all see Ponyboy as an outsider: Being the youngest and the smartest, they have hopes that he will not turn out like them. Quiet and sensitive, Ponyboy is not as tough as the others, and his friends hope that

Ponyboy has a thought which is that the Greasers and Socials are the same. Ponyboy thinks this thought because, Johnny said “There’s still good in the world.” (S.E. Hinton 179) After Ponyboy read this, it inspired Ponyboy to write about how no matter your differences, we are still the same. “How to start the theme, how to start writing something that was important to me.” (S.E. Hinton 180) The important thing to Ponyboy was trying to show the similarities between the Socials and Greaser and try to show that there are more similarities than differences. Ponyboy started to write about his story and started to show that later in his

In the beginning of “The Outsiders”, Ponyboy only likes a few people but in the end, he realizes that he judged people unfairly. In the beginning, he only appreciated Johnny (the second youngest gang member), Soda (the middle child in his family) and Two-Bit (a wisecracking member of the gang). He dislikes Dallas (the most criminal of the gang) and Steve and thinks that his oldest brother, Darry, dislikes him. He also believes that all Socs are bad. His judgments are first brought into question when he meets Cherry Valence, a female Soc. Ponyboy, referring to her and her friend wrote, “It seemed funny to me that Socs -if these girls were any example - were just like us.” (37) Pony’s views on the Socs evolve again when he talks to Randy. After talking to Randy, Pony thinks, “Socs are just guys after all. Things are rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too." (118) By the end of the novel, Pony does not think all Socs are good because there are Socs like Bob, who jumped Johnny and Pony, but he realizes that people should be

Ponyboy Curtis - The novel's fourteen-year-old narrator and protagonist, and the youngest of the greasers. Ponyboy's literary interests and academic accomplishments set him apart from the rest of his gang. Because his parents have died in a car accident, Ponyboy lives with his brothers Darry and Sodapop. Darry repeatedly accuses Ponyboy of lacking common sense, but Ponyboy is a reliable and observant narrator. Throughout the novel, Ponyboy struggles with class division, violence, innocence, and familial love. He matures over the course of the novel, eventually realizing the importance of strength in the face of class bias.

After Johnny’s death, Ponyboy finds a letter written by Johnny that reads, “When you’re a kid everything’s new, dawn. It’s just when you get used to everything that it’s day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That’s gold. Keep it that way, it’s a good way to be,” (178). Johnny urges Ponyboy to embrace his youth and innocence by not yielding to the greaser lifestyle. He insists on Ponyboy seeking his full potential. Ponyboy acknowledges that there are different stories beyond one’s appearance like himself because although the society previously consider him a nuisance to the community, they are proved wrong after he transforms into a hero after saving children from a church fire, which contributes to his dynamic change. Even the close-minded public are subject to their own change of mind. Johnny’s letter also leaves a lifelong impact on Ponyboy’s perspective on the importance of family because the absence of family in Johnny’s life makes Ponyboy treasure the atypical family he has, whether it may the greasers as a whole. In all, a number of people influence Pony to change his views on people and his

There were constant fights either between family or friends that affected the way Ponyboy, let alone the whole gang, grew up-not to mention how they connect to the poem’s themes.“‘Hey, grease,’ one said in an over-friendly voice. ‘We’re gonna do you a favor, greaser. We’re gonna cut all that long greasy hair off.’” Excerpts like these are evidence that Ponyboy was never accepted by other crowds, let alone his older brother Darry. Hints are dropped, like those within the poem explaining how the life was “not as ideal” as the Socs on the other side of town. During his youth, Ponyboy had to undergo some very painstaking experiences including the loss of his parents and the emotional complications within his siblings. In my opinion, the quote from “Poverty and Wealth” that best symbolizes Ponyboy’s maturity levels increasing and how he learns to deal with the struggles but still push through with a positive attitude.“His wants were simple, and simple his creed, To trust God fully: it served his need,” Almost afraid of what was to come from the future,

Imagine being dumb, stealing and carrying blades everywhere you go, and being unable to feel deeply, those words would make people think of Greasers. Most people when they think of gangs they think, that they fight, steal, and do not care about what is going on around them. Those statements that Greaser's and other assortments of gangs are dumb, criminals, and unfeeling may not be true, Ponyboy, the main character in S.E. Hinton’s book The Outsiders, opposes all of those statements.

In the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy is walking home alone thinking about the past, and the relationship between Greasers and Socs, or the upperclassmen. Ponyboy later is jumped due to being alone by himself at night. “ Anyway I went home thinking about the movie, and then suddenly wishing I had some company. Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped…” (Hinton 2). Ponyboy feels isolated knowing there was a chance he could be jumped by a Soc. He was feeling alone which resembled that he wanted some company and wanted to feel safe. Later on, after Johnny saves Ponyboy, and has to kill Bob, a Soc, they have to run away to an abandoned church located in Windrixville. The next day Ponyboy wakes up and Johnny is not sleeping next to him on the ground. This makes Ponyboy feel lonely, and he begins to think about home and wishes he was with his brothers eating dinner. “ I woke up late in the afternoon. For a second I did not know where I was… I convinced myself that I had dreamed the night before.” (Hinton 68)

Ponyboy was always the odd one out, he’s not like the other Greasers. In the novel, after losing several of his dearest friends, Ponyboy’s whole life turned upside down. In the story, many events of violence of loss happened, everything around Ponyboy is just so violent, even he started to be affected by it. “You're the guy that killed Bob Sheldon. […] And he was a friend of ours. We don't like nobody killing our friends, especially greasers."(Hinton 171) Ponyboy’s response to such violent behavior was to face it with more violence. Indignantly, busting off a bottle, Ponyboy threatened the Soc to beat him up, which was not like what he used to do, when he still retained his sanity. Now, Ponyboy is starting to accept violence and is slowly becoming conformity as the others, a cruel and delirious “Greaser”. The transformation is deadly and can ruin his whole life because of this chaotic behavior. Besides Ponyboy’s chaotic behavior, he is starting to fail at daily

It is apparent throughout the movie that Ponyboy struggles with his identity. After his parents had passed away, his older brother, Darrel, became the parental figure for Ponyboy and his other brother, Sodapop. Ponyboy had felt that Darrel didn’t like him anymore and feels that Darrel blames

Ponyboy, Johnny, Sodapop, Darry are all a part of the unruly gang, the Greasers. S.E Hinton is writing these characters as rebellious young men, with a harsh background, who takes their anger and hardship out on gang fighting. These roles play an important part in this book because it shows that even though they nothing physically, they have a heart stronger than gold for each other and others mentally. Hinton use these characters to show prejudice leads to wrong conclusions, violence and oppression because these “poor” young men are getting beat up by the rich Socs who have never felt the feeling of being in poverty. “ You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you’re in a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don’t stick up for them, stick together, make

a very handy pacifier for him such as: When he thought he might go to