People in large communities often judge each other based on appearances and impulsive actions without knowing who the person really is inside. In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, a boy named Ponyboy, and his family go through community conflict. Ponyboy grows up with his brothers and his gang, Soda, Darry, Dally, Johnny, Steve and Two-Bit. Ponyboy’s parents are dead, and he has to learn to watch over himself especially in his unsafe neighborhood. Throughout the book, the characters realize who they can truly be. The moral to the story of The Outsiders is that a person's true character is not necessarily apparent when viewed from the outside.
Each character in Ponyboy’s gang is known for having a certain personality. To start off, Dally is the most famous in the group. He is tough, has been to jail, has been in many fights and is well known for being a bully. In the book, the author states “Dally had spent three years on the wild side of New York and had been arrested at the age of ten. He was tougher than the rest of us---tougher, colder, meaner...he was as wild as the boys in the downtown outfits, like Tim Shepard’s gang.” Because of his reputation, everyone thinks he is the opposite of a nice, kind person, is intimidated by him, and would not go near him. To prove the author’s idea that everyone is not always as expected, in the end of the book, Dally falls apart to tears and commits “cop” suicide when Johnny dies. In the end of the book, the author writes “Whirling suddenly, he slammed back against the wall. His face contracted in agony, and sweat streamed down his face. ‘Damnit, Johnny...’ he begged, slamming one fist against the wall, hammering it to make it obey his will. ‘Oh, damnit, Johnny, don't die, please don’t die…’ He suddenly bolted through the door and down the hall.” Dally is having a breakdown and isn’t able to function. One of his best friends just died and he suddenly isn’t the super tough Dally you would think he is. This proves that when people go through something highly emotional, they can react unexpectedly.
Johnny is another member in the gang who shows how he feels and what he is like on the inside. However, he is quite the opposite of Dally. He is considered a soft kid who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. The author states “Johnny Cade was last and least. If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you’ll have Johnny. He was the youngest...smaller than the rest…” This proves that Johnny is known for being weak, pathetic, and somewhat useless. However, midway through the book, Ponyboy and he are getting picked on by some Socials, also known as Soc’s who are the rich white teens with fancy cars and clothes. They are in a rivalry with the Greasers (lower class people like Johnny and Ponyboy. Johnny ends up killing Bob, one of the Soc’s, because he feels threatened by them. During the story, Ponyboy thinks to himself “For the first time, really, I realized what we were in for. Johnny had killed someone. Quiet, soft-spoken little Johnny, who wouldn’t hurt a living thing on purpose, had taken a human life.” This illustrates how Johnny was seen on the outside as a pathetic, weak and scared little kid but ends up being able to kill a teenager. Also, in the end, the church where Ponyboy and Johnny are staying catches fire. However, there are kids inside and because Johnny thinks it was one of his cigarettes, he feels it is his responsibility. He saves the kids from the fire and is severely injured. For a scared, little kid, it takes a lot of courage to do what he did This also explains how some people can have a wrong impression of someone.
Another example of how people judge others before they truly understand them is the Soc’s. To the Greasers, the Soc’s are terrible, cruel, and spoiled. For example, in the text, Ponyboy and his gang are imitating the Soc’s “ ‘I am a Soc. I am privileged and the well-dressed. I throw beer blasts, drive fancy cars, break peoples windows!” This shows how they disapprove of the Soc’s. They beat up Johnny and jump Greasers daily. In a sense, they are right about the Soc’s, but not all of them are as bad as the Greasers think. Randy Adderson, also a Soc, was best friends with Bob, the person Johnny killed. However, when he is interviewed, he is not against his rivals. Also, another Soc, this time a girl(Cherry), who dated Bob acts the same as Randy. Ponyboy states “They had interviewed Cherry Valance, and she said Bob had been drunk and that the boys had been looking for a fight when they took her home. Bob had told her he’d fix us for picking up his girl. His buddy, Randy Adderson, who had helped jump us, also said it was their fault and that we’d only fought back in self defense.” This proves that people view others in a way that is not true, because all the Greasers thought the Soc’s were terrible people yet one of them helped a Greaser avoid jail. If Randy hadn’t said it was the Soc’s fault that Johnny killed Bob by self defense than Ponyboy and Johnny would have most likely gone to prison. As you can see, sometimes a person looks at someone in a superficial way when on the inside, they can act very different.
The moral to the story is that you cannot “judge a book by its cover.” If the Socs and Greasers learned to accept each other, and learn who they really were, then this story would never have happened. Sometimes people have to look at each other from a different standpoint. Instead of looking at them by how they appear, you should look at them for how they act.
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