The Outsiders Charcter Analysas

The Outsiders

Rural Oklahoma in the 1960’s is the setting for S. E. Hilton’s novel The Outsiders. It is a story of rival groups of teenagers. The Socials are the west side rich kids who seem to have all the breaks. Greasers are the underprivileged kids who are trying to survive their problems. Darrel Curtis, Dally Winston and Johnny Cade are important characters in this story.

To start it off, Darrel has been taking care of the family ever since Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died in a car wreck, eight months before the start of the story. A judge allows the brothers to stay together under twenty-year-old Darry's supervision as long as they stay out of trouble. Rather than go to college on a football scholarship, Darry has to go to work in order to keep the three together and Pony in school. He had to give up a lot and become an adult too fast. "Darry's hard and firm and rarely grins at all." A big and powerful young man, Darry has "eyes that are like two pieces of pale blue-green ice” (pg. 6).

To continue, "The real character of the gang," Dally was arrested his first time at the age of ten. He spent three years on the "wild side" of New York and likes to blow off steam in gang fights. He is the most dangerous member of the bunchвЂ"not even Darry wants to tangle with himвЂ"but he is still a part of their greaser "family." The local police have a large file on him, and he has just gotten out of jail at the opening of the story. While "the fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring".

Further more, Beaten by his father and ignored by his mother, he stays around town only because he is the gang's pet, "everyone's kid brother." Johnny reminds Pony of a "little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost