Analysis of Major Characters
Ponyboy Curtis
Ponyboy Curtis, the youngest member of the greasers, narrates
the novel. Ponyboy theorizes on the motivations and personalities
of his friends and describes events in a slangy, youthful voice.
Though only fourteen years old, he understands the way his social
group functions and the role each group member plays. He sees that
Two-Bit is the wisecracker, Darry the natural leader, and Dally
the dangerous hood.
Ponyboy dislikes the Socs, whom we see through his subjective viewpoint.
The distorting effects of hatred and group rivalry make his narration
less than objective. Ponyboy is young enough to have changeable
conceptions of people, however, and over the course of the novel
he realizes that Socs have problems just as greasers do. He also
comes to see that Socs are even similar to the greasers in some ways.
Ponyboy has a literary bent, which Hinton uses to show
that poverty does not necessarily mean boorishness or lack of culture,
and that gang members are not always delinquents. Ponyboy identifies with
Pip, the impoverished protagonist of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, cites
the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and introduces Johnny
to the southern gentlemen of Margaret Mitchell's Southern epic, Gone
with the Wind. With such an awareness of literary protagonists,
Ponyboy sees himself as he is, as both character and narrator. He
takes on the narrator's work of recounting events and the character's
work of growing and changing as a result of those events. The novel
is not just a story of gang rivalry; it is an account of Ponyboy's
development.
Johnny Cade
Johnny Cade is a vulnerable sixteen-year-old greaser in
a group defined by toughness and a sense of invincibility. He comes
from an abusive home, and he takes to the greasers because they
are his only reliable family. While Johnny needs the greasers, the
greasers also need Johnny, for protecting him gives them a sense
of purpose and justifies their violent measures. When Johnny, little
and vulnerable, suffers at the hands of the Socs, the greasers feel
justified in their hatred of the rival gang.
Passive and quiet, Johnny is the principal catalyst for
the major events of the novel. He stands up to Dally at the drive-in
and tells him to stop harassing the two Soc girls, Cherry and Marcia. Johnny's
intervention on the girls' behalf pleases the girls, and they talk
and walk with the greasers. This interaction between female Socs
and male greasers sparks the anger of the Soc boys and motivates
them to attack Johnny and Ponyboy. Ultimately, Johnny's small acts
of courage lead to murder, death, and heroic rescue. But Johnny
ends by advocating against gang violence, stating that he would
gladly sacrifice his life for the lives of little children. Although a
gentle boy, he has a profound impact with his startling, persistent demand
for peace. His courage in rescuing the children from the burning
church and his subsequent death as a result of injuries sustained
in the rescue make him a martyr. Ponyboy's decision to write the
story that becomes The Outsiders ensures that Johnny's
bravery will not be forgotten.
Cherry Valance
Before Cherry Valance enters the narrative, Ponyboy paints
the conflict between the greasers and the Socs as irreconcilable.
The introduction of Cherry, however, suggests that individual friendships
can chip away at group hatreds. Cherry gets along perfectly well
with some of the greasers. She likes Ponyboy and Johnny because
they treat her politely. Dally's rude antics do not amuse her. Her
disenchantment with Dally's behavior suggests that she talks to
Ponyboy and Johnny not because she is slumming and their greaser
identity fascinates her, but rather because she likes them as individuals.
For a short while at least, she cares more about how each boy behaves than
about his West Side or East Side address.
Cherry is not just a sweet, simple girl. She finds herself
sexually attracted to Dally, who is crass and unrefined but also
sexy and charismatic. Despite all her attraction to the greasers,
moreover, she is not completely free of group prejudice. She tells
Ponyboy she probably will not say hello to him at school, acknowledging
that she respects social divisions. Although Cherry plays a relatively
small role in the novel, the ambiguity of her sympathies gives us
something to which we can relate. She mirrors our own perspective
as someone close to the action who is nevertheless an outsider and
who does not always fully understand other characters' emotions
and motivations.
