Ponyboy Character Description

Every story I’ve ever read has had characters. When there’s characters, there are ones that are stronger and more memorable than others. This quarter, the three characters I’ve found strongest and memorable are Ponyboy Curtis, Dallas “Dally” Winston, and Johnny Cade.

My first character I chose is Ponyboy Curtis from S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. I consider him strong and memorable for many reasons, the first being his direct character description. He directly describes himself as having “light-brown, almost red hair and greenish-grey eyes.” His actions make him memorable as well, such as the way he never uses his head and how that’s sometimes a bad thing and sometimes a good thing. The lesson he learns helps him be strong as well. By the end of the book he eliminates labels from his life and realizes not everything was like his “books and clouds and sunsets.”

My second character that I considered strong and memorable was Dallas Winston also from S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Just like Ponyboy, his direct description is memorable. “He had an elfish face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin… His hair was almost

white it was so blond… His eyes were blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred of the whole world.” His reckless actions made him strong as well, like the way he was always causing trouble and being a part of a New York street gang, truly labels him as a hoodlum. The final thing that makes him memorable is the way he broke down over Johnny. The book claims he ran out of the room when Johnny died and we later find out he robbed a grocery store and while he was running, he pulled out a gun that only Pony knew was unloaded and as soon as he did, he was shot dead.

The last character I have to tell about is Johnny Cade who, once again, is from The Outsiders.

Similar to my other two choices, his direct description, “If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you’ll have Johnny… He had big black eyes in a dark tanned face; his hair was jet-black and heavily greased,” made me remember him. The way Pony describes his past and home life with his father always abusing him and his mother harassing him, helped me truly sympathize and not forget him. The last item that made him strong and memorable was his actions. He killed Bob because he thought he was saving Pony and when he realized that was something terrible he decided to save those kids in the church and even though that killed him in the process, he believed giving his life for them was worth

it.

To conclude, the characters I find strong and memorable are Ponyboy Curtis, Dallas Winston, and Johnny Cade. There are many more strong and memorable characters out there but those are my top three out of the literature we’ve studied this quarter. The more literature I read the more memorable characters I will come across and only the future will tell what they may be.