Ponyboy's Stereotypes

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 Outsiders, a book written by S.E. Hinton, there are two polar opposite gangs, the socs and the greasers. The socs, who are high class, have mustangs and “tuff” cars and wear plaid clothing called madras. The Greasers, who are lower class, are known for their long and greasy hair, wearing leather jackets and being hoods. They only have each other and always have everyone’s back. No matter the situation like leaving a door open in case they need to run away from home because of an abusive dad , they can count on one another. Ponyboy, a 14 year old Greaser, who is also the protagonist, along with other characters lose themselves while trying to be someone else they’re not. Hinton teaches us that it is important to remember that individual

The Greasers felt like outsiders around the Socs because the Socs were the upper class. Socs were always in advanced classes so when Ponyboy (a greaser) was in biology class filled with Socs , he felt like an outsider. When Ponyboy had to dissect a warm and the razor wouldn’t cut, he took out a switchblade. The girl beside him was a Socs and she sad “They are right, you are a hood” (Doc B). So, when Ponyboy was in an advanced class filled with Socs and when

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

Later, Johnny conveys his guilt to Ponyboy when he says: “‘There sure is a lot of blood in people.’”(Hinton 74), nearly quoting Shakespeare in Macbeth. In a later conversation with Johnny, Ponyboy gets thinking about this new world he has been thrust into. In the text he says: “I liked my books and clouds and sunsets. Dally was so real he scared me.”(Hinton 76) This shows how Ponyboy likes when the hero can beat the villain and get a pretty sunset at the end. But now Ponyboy has to deal with the real-world effects of violence, and he doesn’t like it. This marks one of Ponyboy’s first major changes of his mindset on violence.

In chapter 9, Ponyboy says, “Right then the most important thing in my life was helping us whip the Socs.” (114). Ponyboy wanted to help his friends and family drive the Socs out for good. He also wanted to show that he could take care of himself, and for people to not have to worry about him. Although he wanted to fight, he was not in any condition to. He was sick, suffering with bad headaches and lost weight during his stay at the church. Being in this fight instead of resting, would mean sacrificing his health. Knowing the risks, Ponyboy chose to join in the fight to support his friends, therefore sacrificing his

The amount of money someone has, the neighborhood someone lives in, and the school someone goes to does not determine their opinions, ideas, or dreams. Pony lives in a somewhat run-down neighborhood, and he, Darry, and Sodapop don’t have much, but they and their friends still try to be happy, and enjoy life when they can. Unlike the Socs, the Greasers are a family. If one of them gets shot at, four more of them jump out to protect them. “ “It’s not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You Greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated - cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us.” Cherry Valance is a Soc girl, but according to Pony, she isn’t exactly a Soc because she doesn’t chose to see sides like other Socs. She sees Socs as people who don’t feel. Life is good enough for them that things get repetitive and boring, which is probably part of why the Socs enjoy jumping Greasers. The Greasers, on the other hand, don’t have consistent lives. Only a few of them are in school, not all of them have jobs, and they’re always getting into just enough trouble to keep themselves alive, which is why they seem to have more emotions than the Socs. The two groups are so different, and, in retrospect, it’s all because of money. Money could solve almost all of the Greasers’ problems, like by earning them some respect, and it would mean they don’t have to work so hard to get by. When Cherry explains to Pony that Socs have troubles, just like the Greasers, he can’t imagine what kind of troubles they could possibly have, but he quickly learned. All Bob Sheldon wanted was for someone to tell him no, and when someone did it ended up costing him his life.

When people hear Greaser they think of them as not being very smart. This stereotype may have come from how most Greasers have dropped out of school, but Ponyboy is still in school and doing well. Ponyboy has also proved time and time again the he is smart, for example, “I'm not like them. Nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do (Hinton 2)”, that quote from Ponyboy represents that he cares about literature. Greasers also do not have a lot of money, so they can not get into colleges unlike the socs. However, Ponyboy’s goal is to make it into college, he is good writer, as shown in the book, and even if his grades do not get him into college, he could get a track scholarship. It could also be said that Greasers are not well read, because in that quote it says that the other Greasers do not like books. Ponyboy on the other hand loves to read, and another character, Johnny, has an insightful take on Gone With The Wind. It is very clear that generalizing Greasers as the

In The Outsiders, we see the respect and honor among the lawless. The Greasers develop honor among one another due to the struggles they face not being treated equally to those like the Socs, that hold a place in the upper level in society treated equally in the law”(Adamson, 58). The Greasers don’t have many people there for them, the rest of society, but they now have to stick together (Hinton, 176). According to The Outsiders, some of the boys in the Greaser face different problems. Darry became responsible for his little brothers, Ponyboy and SodaPop since their parents died, they fight all the time, and throughout the story try to reconcile and come to an understanding of knowing they need one another. (Hinton, 176). Even though the Greasers are stereotyped, and face different problems, they all share a bond of honor that holds innocence and love. Johnny may seem to be a horrible person for killing Bob, but he saves the children in the burning church, which meant he still had

A main example in the story is when Ponyboy said that he would have been more comfortable talking to the girls had they not been Socs and held a higher class than him, if they were Greaser girls then perhaps he would have formed a relationship with them but since they weren't he was held back. (Hinton 21). Ponyboy was apprehensive to form a relationship with anyone who was in a different class than him. As an example Ponyboy exclaimed, "Do you think that your spying for us makes up for the fact that you're sitting there in a Corvette while my brother drops out of high school to get a job? Don't you ever try to give us handouts and then feel high and mighty about it." (Hinton 98) He is envious because those who have more money than him get nearly anything they want while his clique had to work much harder to achieve anything. Similarly, it is stated that “‘It ain't fair!’ I cried passionately. ‘It ain't fair that we have all the rough breaks!’” (Hinton 43) Again, he is placing the blame for him not having as much in life on those who were given

At the beginning of the book, Ponyboy is in intelligent, young teen, but he lacks the perspective to understand the environment around him. He can only see his side of the story and fails to understand why others act the way they do. The first example of this is his oldest brother Darry. He thinks Darry hates him because he is always giving Ponyboy a hard time about his lack of common sense, his grades,...

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

In The Outsiders, Johnny and Ponyboy save the kids that were trapped in the church fire. Because both Johnny and Ponyboy are greasers, society would not expect them to have willingly gone in to the church and save the children out of the kindness of their hearts. No, a greaser’s goal was to act tough and be “tuff”. In fact, it clearly states in the book, “Tough is the same as rough; tuff means cool, sharp—like a tuff-looking Mustang or a tuff record. In our neighborhood both are compliments,” (Hinton, pg.12). He wants to be tough and tuff and he wants to be heartless

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