PONYBOY ANALYSIS

By Debbie Lee 8E

Who’s he?

First of all, who is Ponyboy? He is the

youngest member in both his gang and his

family with the age of fourteen. He has two older

brothers called Darry and Sodapop who care

tremendously for Ponyboy. He is known to be

fairly handsome like his older brothers, but not

only that, he is also known for his great

intelligence.

Not only that, he is a member of the Greasers,

who are also called Outsiders which represent

social outcast. Although he is aware of the fact

that he is in the way bottom of social statues, he

feels great pride in being a greaser. There are

many things that he do as many other greasers

do such a using slangs, acting tuff in front of

others and even smoking. One thing that he is

most proud of as being a greaser is his long oily

hair coated with hair gel.

yo!

Morals

Ponyboy’s morals change greatly as time passes. In the

beginning, we all know that Ponyboy certainly hated the

Socs. He hated them for having all the good

circumstances when greasers did not. He hated them for

fooling around drinking and tormenting other people when

greasers had to work and earn money for living. However,

this changes completely after the big climax of the story.

After getting to know some of the Socs such as Cherry

and Bob a little better, he finds out that even the Socs are

just humans, that they also have problems in their lives

just like the greasers.

He learns that although the Socs and the greasers

seem to live in a whole different world, they both watch

the same sunset. At the end, he comes to see the Socs

aren’t really his enemies and end up seeing them as

just ordinarily, not just as a Soc. He learns that it’s

better to accept the reality of life and be open to

whatever comes up in his life than just being infuriated

at himself for having such a limited circumstances and

at people in the higher social level.

Personality

Ponboy’s morals are not the only ones that alters

throughout the story; his personality also changes

exceedingly. In the beginning of the book, Ponyboy was just

a wimpy, helpless little kid. Not only that, he was also

preferably quiet and often did not think before taking

actions. He was often in need of his gang members’ help

when he got jumped by the Socs which meant that he

couldn’t yet protect himself fully. He couldn’t even cause

much threat to anyone unlike the rest of the gang. We

know this because when Two-bit handed him a broken

bottle, Ponyboy rejected, saying that he wouldn’t dare

using such thing.

He was therefore considered much less violent member than

the others in his group. However, during the climax of the

book, Ponyboy goes through both hardships and success

which trigger him to be heroic, mature, and gallant. We have

many evidence to prove that, but one example would be when

Ponyboy risk himself and goes into a building fire to save the

lives of poor kids. This definitely shows a great progress in

Ponyboy’s personality.