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The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton: Character Analysis

Decent Essays

The Outsiders is a novel that represents many themes such as honour, the innocence of childhood and the value of appearances through the characters’ dialogue and behaviour that feature in this book. The author, S. E. Hinton writes about a character in her novel by the name of Dallas Winston, a hardened young man that has seen and done too many things for his age. His loyalty to his gang, criminal record and his stand out looks are just some of the characteristics represented to the reader. This is conveyed through Dallas’ description, conversation and actions but also through the main character’s and his friends’ thoughts of him. Dallas’ attributes play a major role in the development of the outstanding themes in this story and help to give the novel depth and a story that almost 50 years on is still able to relate to teenagers of today. Dallas Winston is the best example to show how honour is weaved into the story because of his ‘tougher, colder, meaner’ (Pg. 13) temperament that the main character, Ponyboy portrays to the reader. Any act of honour or selflessness is surprising because of Dallas’ demeanour, so when Dallas takes the massive risk of possibly getting jailed to help Ponyboy and Johnny when they’re in trouble, the reader’s respect for Dallas is definitely raised and the reader begins to understand …show more content…

His hood attitude is only what he lets reflect to others, but he has so many more dimensions, such as the honourable side to him that he only shows when he must, the softness he shows towards Johnny and the helpless wreck he becomes as he reaches out to Darry when Johnny dies. The theme of appearance is very important in this novel for not just Dallas but for all the characters as they all belong to a group or social class and have some standards that they are meant to meet, Winston was a particularly interesting representation of appearances because of the way S.E Hinton created his

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