The Character Of Ponyboy Curtis In 'The Outsiders'

In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, the character Ponyboy Curtis is the perfect example of a strong role model for adults and kids alike. Even though his family isn’t the richest. He still gets good grades and is king toward other people. Ponyboy is a selfless individual, he only fights for self defence, and he loves to express himself in different ways. For those reasons, Ponyboy is a great role model for people with similar lives as him.

Ponyboy loves expressing himself and looking at thing in a different way. For example when Ponyboy was talking to Cherry he mentioned that he loved watching sunsets. And while he loves watching sunsets and all, he like to express himself by writing. He is very smart in school even though his brother,

Darry, thinks that he doesn’t always use common sense. But being smart and being street smart are two very different things. Ponyboy get inspiration to write by reading great books. At the end of the book when Ponyboy was sick and under bed rest for a while, all he did was read. It was the only thing that his brothers would let him do. With this in mind he doesn’t like to argue or fight at all.

Ponyboy hates when the greasers fight with the socs, and after he talks to Cherry he realizes that not all socs look for fights. He also realized that greasers and socs aren’t all that different after all. And Ponyboy would never hurt anyone on purpose unless it was self defense and he only carries a weapon for protection against the socs. In fact he would never really hurt anyone at all and Cherry knows it. She saw that Ponyboy and Johnny were good guys. “Johnny grinned.”How come y’all ain’t scared of us like you were Dally?” Cherry sighed. “You two are too sweet to scare anyone”(Hinton,26). And as Cherry pointed out they are to sweet to be mean or scare anyone.

In addition to him not liking to fight, he is very selfless. He cares for everybody even people he doesn’t even know. Him and Johnny rushed into a burning church to save the little kid that were inside. All because he thought that he was the one that caused the fire. He didn’t care what would happen to him, he just wanted the kids to be safe. And at the end of the book when the socs came up to him looking to fight because he killed one of their friends. He grabbed a glass bottle and broke it. After the socs went away he picked up all the broken glass because he didn’t want a car to get a flat tire.

With all of these amazing traits in mind about Ponyboy. Some people would say he is a great role model. Others might way that he was just doing what he thought was right, which is exactly what he was doing. Ponyboy is a very good role model and does what he thinks is right. And he is very courageous and generous in everything he does.