The Outsiders

“I had to read Great Expectations for English, and that kid Pip, he reminded me of us—the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn’t a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him.” 

Ponyboy enjoys reading, as it helps him escape from his present circumstances into different worlds. Nevertheless, he often finds parallels between his own life and the life of a novel’s characters, like Pip. Pip’s treatment in Great Expectations mirror experiences Pony has had with Soc girls and prompts him to reflect on labels and assumptions people make about one another.

“I had just as much right to use the streets as the Socs did. Why did the Socs hate us so much? We left them alone.” 

Following his attack, Ponyboy wonders about the senselessness of these gang muggings. Through this kind of deeper introspection, which is unique to him among his fellow greasers, Ponyboy arrives at various profound conclusions about his world and the ways it should change.

“Soda’s enough, and I’d have him until I got out of school. I don’t care about Darry. But I was still lying and I knew it.”

Ponyboy clearly identifies how different his relationships with his two brothers are. Since their parents’ death, his relationship with Darry has been distant and precarious, but over the course of the novel, they are able to reconcile and mend their relationship. 

“And Johnny, who was the most law-abiding of us, now carried in his back pocket a six-inch switchblade. He'd use it, too, if he ever got jumped again. They had scared him that much. He would kill the next person who jumped him. Nobody was ever going to beat him like that again. Not over his dead body…” 

Pony describes to Cherry how traumatized Johnny became after his attack, stressing the significance of his switchblade. Pony foreshadows Bob’s murder, which ultimately changes the course of all the characters’ lives.

“All Socs aren't like that [...] We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know something? [...] Things are rough all over.”

After Pony describes the night of Johnny’s attack, Cherry stresses to him that not all Socs are as mean or violent as Bob and his friends, and that Socs struggle with their own problems. Over the course of the novel, Pony comes to realize that the other side of the class divide does indeed have its own struggles, and that their constant fighting will never solve their problems. 

“You greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated—cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us. You know, sometimes I’ll catch myself talking to a girl-friend, and realize I don’t mean half of what I’m saying.” 

Cherry tries to explain to Pony that it is not just money that separates the greasers from the Socs, but their emotionality, too. This difference manifests in opposing ways: the Socs attempt to elicit a reaction in order to feel something (like Bob trying to get into trouble at home), while the greasers feel everything so acutely that they have to learn to “shut off [their] emotions” (121). For members of both gangs, the ability (or inability) to feel deeply is intricately linked to the boys’ senses of vulnerability and masculinity.

“‘It’s okay,’ I said, wishing I was dead and buried somewhere. Or at least that I had on a decent shirt. ‘We aren’t in the same class. Just don’t forget that some of us watch the sunset too.’” 

Despite the ease with which they have been speaking all night, and the connection they feel to one another, Cherry admits that she will have to ignore Pony in public. Not wanting to admit how awful that makes him feel (which further proves Cherry’s point that greasers feel more deeply than Socs do), he casually brushes it off but reminds her that he watches the sunset like she does—a metaphor that he adopts to remind himself and others that regardless of social class, they are all still human and connected in more ways than they think.

“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.” 

After the boys witness a beautiful sunrise from the church in Windrixville, Pony recites Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” to Johnny. Uncertain of the poem’s deeper meaning, Pony thinks of it because of the sunrise’s golden colors. Unbeknownst to Pony, Johnny internalizes the poem and offers his own interpretation of its meaning in a letter, which Pony only finds after Johnny’s death.

“Man, next time I want a broad I’ll pick up my own kind.” 

Dally is referring to Cherry betraying the Socs by becoming a spy for the greasers, but his sentiment echoes the warning Bob gave Johnny and Pony the night he was killed (55). It gives Pony “the creeps,” and illustrates just how rigidly the lines between these social classes have been drawn.  

“No, it wasn’t Cherry the Soc who was helping us, it was Cherry the dreamer who watched sunsets and couldn’t stand fights.” 

Pony is initially shocked to hear that Cherry has been spying on the Socs for the greasers. He quickly realizes that her label has nothing to do with her wanting to help them and grows to understand that an individual’s actions do not have to be dictated by their social class.

“Johnny, I ain’t mad at you. I just don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t know what a few months in jail can do to you. Oh, blast it, Johnny [...] you get hardened in jail. I don’t want that to happen to you. Like it happened to me...” 

When Johnny announces that he and Pony are going to turn themselves in and risk imprisonment, Dally is uncharacteristically worried and empathetic. The only times Pony witnesses this change in Dally’s behavior is around Johnny, who is “the only thing Dally loved” (152).

“In that second what Soda and Dally and Two-Bit had been trying to tell me came through. Darry did care about me, maybe as much as he cared about Soda, and because he cared he was trying too hard to make something of me.” 

When Darry and Soda arrive at the hospital after the church fire, Darry is so relieved to see Ponyboy is unhurt that he starts to cry. Since their parents’ deaths, Pony has been certain that Darry resents having to take care of him. Seeing this display of emotion at the hospital, however, helps Pony realize that Darry’s strictness comes from a place of love and from fear of losing him.

“‘Greaser’ didn’t have anything to do with it. My buddy over there wouldn’t have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn’t have. It’s the individual.” 

Randy admits that he was shocked to hear some greasers saved the children from the burning church, but Pony insists that their labels had nothing to do with their actions. Knowing that some greasers would have risked their lives, while others would not have, Pony has come to realize that societal labels do not dictate the kind of person he is.

“And tonight… people get hurt in rumbles, maybe killed. I’m sick of it because it doesn’t do any good. You can’t win, you know that, don’t you? [...] You can’t win, even if you whip us. You’ll still be where you were before—at the bottom. And we’ll still be the lucky ones with all the breaks. So it doesn’t do any good, the fighting and the killing. It doesn’t prove a thing. We’ll forget it if you win, or if you don’t. Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs.” 

Randy confides in Ponyboy that he is skipping the rumble and leaving town. Randy has concluded that the gang’s constant fighting never solves anything, and that their social standings will never change. Though Pony has reached a similar conclusion of the futility of violence, he believes there is hope for change if someone tells their story.

“Socs were just guys after all. Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.” 

After speaking with Cherry and Randy and hearing their perspective, Pony comes to genuinely believe that the East side is not the only one with all the “rough breaks.” Of all the greasers, Pony is the only one to truly recognize the “sameness” between the warring social classes.

“Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the sights you want to see.” 

After Johnny admits his fear of dying and his regret of not experiencing more of the world, Ponyboy reflects on what it means to grow up on the East side. Though their rough childhoods have afforded them plenty of life lessons, Pony realizes how detrimental these lessons are to the boys’ understanding of the world, further spurring him to imagine a better future for himself.

“(What kind of world is it where all I have to be proud of is a reputation for being a hood, and greasy hair? I don’t want to be a hood, but even if I don’t steal things and mug people and get boozed up, I’m marked lousy. Why should I be proud of it? Why should I even pretend to be proud of it?).” 

As the greasers prepare for the rumble, Ponyboy explains that they wear more hair oil than usual because during a rumble they could be proud of their reputation. His introspective and inquisitive nature allow him to reflect on the harsh, and often unfair, realities of the world, and to question his own motives. He stands out from the rest of the gang in this way and is also the only one who genuinely believes the status quo can change.

“Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn’t think of any real good reason. There isn’t any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.” 

After asking the gang their reasons for fighting, Ponyboy cannot produce his own. This is another moment that sets him apart from the rest of the greasers and shows that he has come to the same conclusion that Randy had—the constant violence never accomplishes anything. 

“Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold...” 

These are Johnny’s last words before he dies. In the moment, Ponyboy does not understand their significance, but he later realizes they are a reference to the Frost poem Ponyboy had recited in Windrixville. In Chapter 12, Pony finds a letter from Johnny that articulates his understanding of the poem and further encourages Pony to “stay gold.”

“I looked at Bob’s picture and I could begin to see the person we had killed. A reckless, hot-tempered boy, cocky and scared stiff at the same time.” 

Mindlessly flipping through Soda’s old yearbook, Pony notices Bob’s old photo. By imagining what he could have been like, Ponyboy humanizes him, removing his label and seeing someone like his own friends.

“What was the matter with Two-Bit? I knew as well as he did that if you got tough you didn’t get hurt. Get smart and nothing can touch you…” 

Two-Bit is shocked to see Ponyboy threaten a group of Socs with a broken bottle—something Pony has never done before. Having lost two friends in one night, and taking Dally’s advice to heart (147), Pony has started to defensively numb himself and toughen up. He has not completely hardened, though, as he immediately begins to clean up the broken glass so as not to give someone a flat tire.

“We’re all we’ve got left. We ought to be able to stick together against everything. If we don’t have each other, we don’t have anything.”

Sodapop pleads with his brothers to stop their frequent arguments because he always feels torn between them. This moment prompts Darry and Pony to reconcile their differences and highlights the importance of family—whether biological or chosen—throughout the novel.

“I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green [...] Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be.” 

Ponyboy discovers a letter Johnny wrote him before his death, explaining his understanding of the Frost poem Pony recited at the church. The letter clarifies Johnny’s last words to Pony (148) and demonstrates just how meaningful their friendship was: Johnny took the poem to heart, and always saw how “gold” Ponyboy was.