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PONYBOY ANALYSIS By Debbie Lee 8E
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!
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.
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.