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Examples of symbolism in S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders
Examples of symbolism in S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders
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Darry Darry is the oldest Curtis boy. He is smart, hardworking, and very muscular. He is Ponyboy and Soda’s big brother. For his symbols I chose a tight black muscle shirt, a high school diploma, egg sandwich, chocolate cake, bundle of twigs, and a letterman jacket. The tight black muscle shirt represents he is muscular. The high school diploma means he is smart. He loves egg sandwiches and chocolate cake. The bundle of twigs represents the bundle of roofing and Darry works really hard. The letterman jacket means he loves to play football and had a scholarship for college. Darry had two main conflicts him hitting Ponyboy and him not going to college. Ponyboy came home late and Darry was mad so he slapped Ponyboy. Darry was going to …show more content…
He is smart, a good friend, a good fighter and member. For his symbols I chose a Pepsi bottle, Gone With the Wind, a pencil, the country, a Dairy Queen sign, eggs, chocolate cake, a cigarette, and hair grease. Ponyboy is a Pepsi addict. Ponyboy and Johnny would read Gone With the Wind when they were hiding. He loves to draw in his free time. Ponyboy wishes his family could live in the country. Dally takes Ponyboy and Johnny to Dairy Queen to have a meal. He likes chocolate cake and eggs for breakfast. He smokes a cigarette because everyone smokes cigarettes. He wears hair grease because he is a greaser. Ponyboy has two main conflicts. Darry slapping him and Johnny killing the Soc. When Ponyboy is talking to Johnny and falls asleep. He comes back to the house later than curfew and Darry gets mad. Darry yells at him, he yells back, and darry slaps him. He runs away to Johnny and the run to the park. The Socs pull up and attack them. Then Johnny kills the Soc with a switchblade. The settings are the lot,a poor-looking house, a park, and a church. The lot is where Ponyboy falls asleep talking to Johnny. The poor-looking house is where the Curtis’s live and is where Darry hits Pony. The park is where Johnny and Ponyboy were attacked by the Socs. It also is where Johnny kills the Soc. Finally the church is where Pony and Johnny hide when the run away after killing the
Johnny Cade - Johnny is Pony's closest friend and the gang's pet. They are especially protective of him since he is smaller than the rest, his father beats him, and he is afraid to walk the streets alone after being attacked by a group of Socs.
Ponyboy was a bad kid, he fought against Socs and he even smoked a weed, which is a cigarette. Later on he got into worse trouble and had to hide. He wanted to change and be a different person. While he hid he was scared and frightened and was beginning to think of how he was doing in life, and his thoughts were not very well. After the church incident, he began to change a little.
The main character of this book is Ponyboy. Ponyboy was a Greaser he was different from all the others he liked books and movies. Nobody in the Greasers digged books and movies the way Ponyboy did. Ponyboy was fourteen years old and he had two brothers that he lived with his older brother Darrel who they call Darry and his second older brother Sodapop who was sixteen going on seventeen. Ponyboy only live with his brothers because they mother and father was killed in a car accident. Ponyboy wanted to be like a movie star Paul Newman he wished he looked like him. Ponyboy always thought his brother Darry never cared about him or anything else. Ponyboy had a friend Jonny. Johnny was a Greaser too but he was the softest one but after he got jumped that changed he always carried a switchblade on him.
Ponyboy has good grades and he likes to be on the track team and that keeps him in good health. In the end Ponyboy realizes that Darry cared about him as much as Sodapop. Darry is rough on Ponyboy because he want’s the best for him. Clearly Ponyboy does good in school and likes to do track and this keeps him in shape. All in all Ponyboy should stay with Darry because Darry tries too hard to keep Ponyboy in school so that he would have a better life. Darry has high expectations for Ponyboy and these expectations keep Ponyboy with good grades. Ponyboy also does track and this keeps him healthy and in shape. Ponyboy might be a star track runner. This is why Ponyboy should stay with
Showing that Ponyboy was very inexperienced and thought Mickey Mouse Sodas horse was just like Soda and they were brothers.Thirdly, we see how some actions Ponyboy’s gang does help show the need for childhood innocence like when pony says,” Darrel, who we call Darry, works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture,” (Hinton 3). Darry is only 20 and he has a job working on roofs he works so hard so he can care for his brothers Soda and Ponyboy he has no time to be a kid himself he is working like a man when he is only a child.While some believe the main theme is brotherly love I argue its preserving childhood innocence. While this is a good point, because Ponyboy’s group definitely sticks up for one another in a brotherly fashion, it lays a strong foundation for preserving childhood innocence. Jonny had never been a coward he was a good man in a rumble, (Hinton 34) this shows how has Johnny loses his innocence, he becomes fearful of the Soc’s and begins to carry a switchblade to keep his gang safe, you might think this shows brotherly love, but it also shows preserving childhood innocence because when Johnny got used to being targeted by the Soc’s he lost his innocence, that’s why he would carry stuff like switch blades to keep him and others safe from the Soc’s. While the Greasers grew up they lost more and more of their innocence to rumbles and hatred of the Soc’s.
By looking at the incidents happened around Ponyboy and the changes of Ponyboy’s attitudes towards reality, we can see that Ponyboy has matured and learned the essence of solving problems, which most readers don’t see; this is important because it reveals the relationship between dreams and reality, that is cocooning from the world is not going to solve any problems, instead, only through facing the reality could we regain lost courage and break the obstacles.
Ponyboy talks about him as having ", an elfish face with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, small, sharp animal teeth, and ears like a lynx. His hair was so blond, and he didn't like haircuts, or hair oil either, so it fell over his forehead in wisps and kicked out in the back in tufts and curled behind his ears and along the nape of his neck. His eyes were blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred of the whole world. “He works as a jockey, and funnily doesn't rig his races; it's "the only thing Dally did honestly." Even though he is only seventeen years old, "the fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring." He set the stereotype for the greasers its scary to the others how scary he is. In the events when Johnny killed Bob dally helped out the boys and gifted them one handgun and $100. Ponyboy realizes the truth after Johnny's death. When he tries to make sense of Dally's reaction to Johnny's death, it dawns on him, "Johnny was the only thing that Dally
The Protagonist “Ponyboy Curtis”, had Adversity with Darry. He tried his best to explain all the mistakes that he made, and Darry would just start yelling at him, and go completely insane. Ponyboy didn’t want to live with him that way, because his would’ve
Moreover, Ponyboy is a thinker. He can think for the opposite side of his gang, the Socs. Although the Socs almost drowned him, he can still understand the Socs and didn’t be blinded by the hate. He in the chaos and impulsive world can see through the surface of the conflict and see the core of the world that people are the same. That is really amazing and Ponyboy does have the board mind of a
He knows that Ponyboy has a chance because he is very smart. How they both reacted to not having parents shaped and effected who they are. “Johnny was high-strung anyway, a nervous wreck from getting belted every time he turned around and from hearing his parents fight all the time(2).” This explains how Johnny was effected by his parents. His parents constantly fighting and beating him made him who he was. A part of him was effected by all the chaos and pain he had to go through every day. “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 one day and an asset to society the next. Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while. I don't mean I do things like that. Darry would kill me if I got into trouble with the police.” Social roles are a part of self-image that makes a person who they are. In the novel Ponyboy explains the groups that the Greasers and Sochs were split into. This
In the book The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy, along with his brothers and friends, has to face the daily struggles of being a greaser among the Socs. This fiction book focused on Ponyboy’s life and the problems he ran into with the Socs. He and his gang of friends had fights with the Socs that happened often, and had to deal with a Soc being killed by one of the Greasers, though it was an act of self defense. The three topics addressed in this intriguing novel are the fight between rich and poor, the power of friendship, and what it means to be a hero.
Darrel Curtis, who every one called Darry, took on a lot of responsibility in order to care for his two younger brothers, Sodapop and Ponyboy. Ponyboy explains, “But then, Darry’s gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast,” (Hinton 2). Twenty year old Darry had to grieve his parents’ death, skip college to work and support his two brothers, and lose his childhood too quickly. Darry was very athletic and could have earned a scholarship to a college, but he gave it all up. He works too long and too hard and never has time for any fun. Darry was very close to his father and losing him was a big deal to him. Darrel Curtis is a prime example of someone who grew up too fast.
Typically, greasers are depicted as people similar to hoods, as Ponyboy states, "Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while" (Hinton 4). Yet, even though Ponyboy is a greaser, he avoids getting into trouble for the sake of staying together with his family. He explains that, "I don't mean I do things like that... Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together only as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can, and we're careful not to get caught when we can't" (Hinton 4). Alternatively, Pony also enjoys activities such as reading and watching movies. Even simpler things, such as sunsets and clouds, are something he found beauty and enjoyment in. This sets him apart from the greasers because according to Pony, he states that, "And nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do" (Hinton 3). Since nobody other than Ponyboy himself shares the enjoyment of these particular pastimes, which is drastically different from pursuits such as shoplifting and fighting in rumbles, Ponyboy is divergent from the standard attributes of the greasers. Therefore, Ponyboy is a thoughtful and dreamy individual who holds different interests and aspirations than the
After the church fire Ponyboy comes to the realization of many things. Two-Bit and Ponyboy are eating at a restaurant known as Tasty Freeze when Randy asks to speak with him. Ponyboy tells Randy, ¨Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn’t have. It’s the individual¨(115). He finds out that you cannot define someone based on of they are part of the Socs or the greasers. Furthermore, he finds out that every one is a individual and that means that just because he is a part of a certain group it does not mean that they are all going to react or perceive a situation in the same exact way. In addition, he say this to Randy because when there was a fire in the church Dally was not willing to risk his life to save someone else's when Johnny and Ponyboy were more than willing to help the kids. This shows event shows how all Greasers and Socs are not the same. In the beginning of the novel Ponyboy believed Darry disliked him and thought he was a nuisance. However, later on at the hospital Ponyboy tells Darry, “I’m sorry” (98). Ponyboy’s words expose how he feels bad for thinking Darry disliked him all along when in truth he loved him more than words could describe. He realizes that Darry fears losing another family member that is why he is so overprotective of Ponyboy. Hence, proving Ponyboy is clearly a dynamic character.
He realizes that he had an identity that he can communicate and be like a greaser, but doesn’t devote to the greaser way of life. In the scene, Ponyboy has an advanced way of life that includes both the Soc and greaser style, “Socs are just guys after all...Thing are rough all over.” Ponyboy at this time, understands how a Soc and a Greaser are similar and are of the same kind, human, yet are also different. He establishes an idea that the identity of a person is important because it describes who you are. As a result, Pony learns to look between the lines of people, not just at the extremes. The evidence that supports this is also “On the Sidewalk Bleeding” as I stated before. Andy says, “I’m Andy, he screamed wordlessly, I’m Andy.” When Andy’s death was coming close, the only thing we wanted in the end, was an identity. Similar to Ponyboy who is different from the gang and has a distinct personality. He is disparate because in the gang, Pony was the only one who ever thought about the sky, clouds, and books, which proves him exclusively in the group. This proves that Andy and Ponyboy are different from their gang and have a personality different from the group, and they both actually want to be different and be known not as a Royal or a Greaser, but as Andy and