A Guide to the Characters in “The Outsiders”

The Outsiders is a young adult novel by S.E. Hinton. Written when the author herself was in her teens, the book was published in 1967 and reflected the theme of liberation that dominated the public imagination in America during the 1960s.

The primary rivalry between the two teen gangs in the book, the Greasers and the Socs, was inspired by a real life fight witnessed by Hinton. She sought to capture the grittiness and senseless violence that frequently broke out in high schools at the time, as opposed to previously published accounts of adolescent life in the US that often portrayed it as prosaic and sanitized. 

The Outsiders gained immense popularity and continues to remain a frequently read book. Its position in American pop culture has been cemented by the 1983 movie based on it. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it features a star cast that includes Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, and Patrick Swayze. The book has also been adapted for the stage several times.

Summary of The Outsiders 

The book is narrated by Ponyboy Curtis, a 14-year-old boy. He lives with his brothers Darry and Sodapop, both of whom are older than him. The three boys are orphaned (their parents died in a car accident), and are only able to live together because Darry is an adult (at 20) and has assumed guardianship of his brothers.

The story opens with Ponyboy walking home alone at night after a movie. He is a member of the Greasers, a working class teen gang who are named after their long greasy hair. Their rivals are the Socs (short for Socials), a group from the other side of town, both literally and figuratively; the Socs hail from rich families and they primarily reside on the Westside, while the Greasers come from the Eastside.

The hostility between the Greasers and the Socs is based on their different social classes.

On the way, Ponyboy is attacked by some Socs and escapes grave harm only when a few other Greasers arrive on the scene and help him out. They are Johnny, Dally, Steve, and Two-Bit.

The following night Ponyboy, Dally, and Johnny go for a drive-in movie where they meet two girls, Cherry Valance and Marcia. They are the girlfriends of two Soc members, Bob and Randy. However, the girls are not sitting with their boyfriends as they are drunk. The five begin talking, and Dally leaves after a while, only to be replaced by Two-Bit. The Greasers offer to walk the girls home after the movie but run into their drunk boyfriends. A fight is narrowly avoided when Cherry and Marcia intervene and leave with Bob and Randy.

Ponyboy and Johnny loiter in a parking lot and fall asleep there until 2 a.m. Upon waking up, Ponyboy rushes home where he finds Darry waiting for him. His brother is outraged at Ponyboy for his carelessness, and the two fall into a loud argument. A heated Darry slaps Ponyboy across the face, and the latter runs back out of the house in anger and frustration.

Ponyboy and Darry's relationship is fraught, and the two often fight.

Ponyboy finds Johnny back at the parking lot, and the two wander into a park in an attempt to kill time and to make Ponyboy feel better. They once again encounter Bob and Randy here, this time with a few other Socs boys. Outnumbered and overpowered, Ponyboy and Johnny are seized by the Socs who proceed to attack them. One of them pushes Ponyboy’s face into and under the water of a nearby fountain. He is held down for such a long time that Johnny begins to panic about him drowning. To rescue Ponyboy, Johnny pulls out a switchblade and stabs the Socs boy, killing him.

This turn of events horrifies the Greaser boys. They go to Dally, the oldest member of the gang and beg for his help. He hands them some money, advises them to hideout at an abandoned church far from town, and gives them the directions to reach it. He tells them to wait there until he comes to look for them.

Johnny and Ponyboy hitch a ride on a freight train and eventually arrive at the church. They spend a week there, playing with a set of cards and reading from a copy of Gone With the Wind, both of which they found in the church. The boys also cut their hair and alter their clothes a little as a form of disguise. Hiding out in the church also makes them feel like complete outcasts or “outsiders,” and their attempts at grooming are an effort to feel a little less like outsiders to society. 

When Dally finally arrives, he brings news of intensified rivalries between the Socs and the Greasers. Cherry has turned into a spy for the Greasers as she knew Bob’s state of drunkenness the night he died and believes that Ponyboy and Johnny acted in self-defense.

As they hide out in an abandoned church, Ponyboy and Johnny begin to feel like outcasts.

Hearing that his story will be supported, Johnny announces that he will return to town and turn himself in for Bob’s murder. As the three boys pass by the church on their way back to town, they see that it has caught fire. They also notice several children around, and realize that a school group had been out and about the place for an outing, and that some of them have gotten trapped inside.

Ponyboy and Johnny rush into the burning church without a second thought to try to rescue the children inside. As they are passing the last child out to Dally, the roof collapses, burning and injuring Johnny severely. 

An ambulance is summoned, and it takes the two boys, now dubbed “heroes,” back into town. Ponyboy only has a few cuts and bruises and is allowed to be reunited with his brothers soon. Johnny, on the other hand, is admitted into hospital due to his critical condition.

Later that night, a final showdown takes place between the Greasers and the Socs. This is an attempt to bring their rivalry to an end, once and for all. The Greasers emerge victorious.

Dally and Ponyboy return to the hospital only to witness Johnny’s death. Ponyboy goes home to his brothers while Dally, overwhelmed by grief, robs a grocery store. He then calls the Curtis household from a phone booth near a parking lot and informs them of what he’s done and tells them that the police are after him. The Greasers arrive at the lot just in time to watch Dally being gunned down by the police when he tries to retrieve a black object from his pocket—a switchblade and not a gun as the officers had assumed. 

Over the next few days Ponyboy is struck hard by the violence of everything that he has encountered. The judge acquits him of Bob’s murder, but back at home, the tension between himself and Darry has racked up considerably. It only comes to an end when Sodapop approaches Ponyboy about it and requests him to stop fighting.

Ponyboy decides to write about his friends’ deaths for his English assignment, which eventually turns into the narrative just presented. 

Cast of Characters in The Outsiders

Michael “Ponyboy” Curtis

He is the protagonist and narrator of the book. Ponyboy is a 14-year-old who lives with his two older brothers. Their parents have died in a car accident. He is also the youngest member of the Greasers gang. 

Ponyboy is intelligent, interested in reading and observant of what is happening around him. Even at a young age, he has a grasp of the social dynamics at play within the Greasers and in their rivalry with the Socs. While he has a hatred of the Socs, he is open to changing his mind when faced with other perspectives, such as Cherry Valance’s. 

Ponyboy does not have an easy relationship with his oldest brother, who he believes is controlling. However, by the end of the book, he grows more empathetic towards Darry and is able to understand the worries that plague his brother. Overall, the events he experiences over the course of the book mature him. The Outsiders, in essence, chronicles Ponyboy’s coming of age.

Darrell “Darry” Curtis

He is the oldest Curtis brother, and the death of their parents has forced him into a caretaker role too early, at the age of twenty. He has given up a chance to go to college, working instead as a laborer to provide for his two younger brothers. He is their legal guardian as it is the only way for the brothers to not be separated by the state. However, he is also constantly worried that he might lose custody of Sodapop and Ponyboy.

Having had to take up so much responsibility too soon, Darry is a strict and relatively harsh character. He frequently gets into arguments with Ponyboy, even hitting him once in the heat of the moment. By the end of the book, Ponyboy begins to understand Darry’s side of things, helping them reunite.

Sodapop Curtis

He is the second of the Curtis brothers and, at 16, has dropped out from high-school. He is described as being “movie-star” handsome and works at a gas station. Besides being good-looking, Sodapop is a charming character who is happy-go-lucky, unlike his more intense brothers. This characteristic makes him easier to be with for Ponyboy than Darry. Soda provides Ponyboy with the emotional safe space that Darry cannot. 

Sodapop is a counter to Darry's strictness for Ponyboy.

Soda acts as a bridge in moments when Ponyboy and Darry’s relationship gets especially hostile and tense. At the end of the book, it is him who brings the family together, requesting his brothers to stop fighting and tearing what is left of their family apart.

Despite his relatively carefree exterior, Soda faces struggles of his own. He is in love with and plans to marry Sandy, a Greaser girl. However, she has gone to Florida and is not answering his letters to her.

Dallas “Dally” Winston

He is one of the oldest members of the Greasers and is an ex-convict. He strikes Ponyboy as especially aggressive and violent. 

Dally grew up on the streets of New York City and violence has been a constant in his life. He remembers his father as being abusive and even now believes that the man will not care if he is dead or alive. 

However, in spite of his rough exterior, Dally cares deeply for Johnny, whom he sees as a younger brother who has not yet had to face especially difficult circumstances. He seeks to protect Johnny from the pain and suffering that he himself has undergone. As Ponyboy and Johnny go into hiding, Dally is the one who helps them, first by directing them to the abandoned church and then later by visiting them. He also tries to help the boys when they rush into the burning church to rescue the trapped children.

Dally's protectiveness of Johnny is a reflection of the compassion he has for someone else who could face the same violence he did.

Dally’s bond with Johnny was a profound one, and after Johnny’s death, Dally is beside himself with grief. His own death comes from a policeman’s gun—a death as violent as the life he led.

Johnny Cade

He is Ponyboy’s best friend and the other primary character in the book. While The Outsiders captures Ponyboy’s coming of age, it also details Johnny’s story and chain of events that led to his death. 

Johnny comes from an abusive home and finds a more secure family with the Greasers. They are all protective of him, especially Dally. Johnny is a sensitive boy, and it is his defense of Cherry and Marcia at the drive-in that sparks another point of rivalry with the Socs. However, it is also this event that exposes Ponyboy to a Soc point of view when he talks to the girls. 

The violence that Johnny gets embroiled in, when he kills Bob in self-defense, turns him further against violence. He attempts to atone for his actions when he runs into the burning church to save the children. This, however, kills him instead.

Sherri “Cherry” Valance

She is the girlfriend of Bob, a Soc. She meets Ponyboy and Johnny at a drive-in theater and strikes up a conversation with them. When Dally is rude to her and Johnny defends her, she is thankful to him.

The developing friendship between Cherry, Johnny and Ponyboy inadvertently leads to the deaths in the book.

Cherry opens up a new perspective for Ponyboy, who until now, hated the Socs unreservedly. She shows him how individual relationships can go beyond the gangs’ rivalry. She is well aware of how the deep divisions around them will have to shape their behavior, when she tells the boys that she will not talk to them at school. However, she also acknowledges that it is all for show and that she does not believe they fall in the Greaser stereotype. She later proves this when she acts as a spy for the Greasers while Ponyboy and Johnny are in hiding.

Steve Randle

He is Sodapop’s best friend and works with him at the gas station. He is a car enthusiast and prominent member of the Greasers. Steve sees Ponyboy as an inconvenient tag-along to Soda and himself.

Keith “Two-Bit” Matthews

He is one of the older members of the Greasers, but he is still in high school. He acts like a comedian and is always delivering wisecracks. He flirts with Marcia, Cherry’s friend and a Soc girlfriend at the drive-in, for fun and furthers hostilities between the two gangs.

Marcia

She is Cherry’s friend and the girlfriend of Randy, a Soc. She flirts with Two-Bit at the drive-in and realizes that the two share a sense of humor. 

Bob Sheldon

He is Cherry’s boyfriend and a member of the Socs. He attacks Johnny and Ponyboy and is among the group that almost drowns Ponyboy. This leads to Johnny attacking him and then killing him by mistake in his attempt to save Ponyboy.

Randy Adderson

He is Marcia’s boyfriend, Bob’s best friend, and a member of the Socs. While he had initially been a part of the group that attacked Johnny and Ponyboy, by the end of the book he has transformed and has grown weary of the gang violence. Randy refuses to participate in the final Greaser-Soc rumble. 

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