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Darrell Curtis -
Ponyboy’s oldest brother. Darrell, known as “Darry,” is a twenty-year-old greaser who is raising Ponyboy
because their parents have died in a car crash. Strong, athletic, and intelligent, Darry has quit school. He works two jobs
to hold the family together. The unofficial leader of the greasers, he becomes an authority figure for Ponyboy. He also makes
good chocolate cake, which he and his brothers eat every day for breakfast. The other greasers call him “Superman.”
Sodapop Curtis -
Ponyboy’s happy-go-lucky, handsome brother. Sodapop is the middle Curtis boy. Ponyboy envies Sodapop’s good looks
and charm. Sodapop plans to marry Sandy, a greaser girl.
Two-Bit Mathews - The joker of Ponyboy’s
group. Two-Bit, whose real name is Keith, is a wisecracking greaser who regularly shoplifts. He prizes his sleek black-handled
switchblade. He instigates the hostilities between the Socs and the greasers by flirting with Marcia, the girlfriend of a
Soc.
Steve Randle - Sodapop’s
best friend since grade school. Steve is a seventeen-year-old greaser who works with Sodapop at the gas station. Steve knows
everything about cars and specializes in stealing hubcaps. He is cocky and intelligent, tall and lean. He wears his thick
hair in a complicated arrangement of swirls. He is also tough—he once held off four opponents in a fight with a broken
soda bottle. He sees Ponyboy as Sodapop’s annoying kid brother and wishes Ponyboy would not tag along so often.
Dallas Winston -
The toughest hood in Ponyboy’s group of greasers. Dallas, known as “Dally,” is a hardened teen who used
to run with gangs in New York. He has an elfin face and icy blue eyes and, unlike his friends, does not put grease in his
white-blond hair. Dally’s violent tendencies make him more dangerous than the other greasers, and he takes pride in
his criminal record. Dally feels protective of Johnny Cade.
Ponyboy Curtis- the youngest member of the greasers,
narrates the book. Ponyboy theorizes on the personalities of his friends and describes the thingthat happen in a slangy
way ad youthful voice. Though only fourteen years old, he understands his social group functions and the role each group
member plays. He sees that Two-Bit is the wisecracker, Darry the natural leader, and Dally the dangerous
hood.
Ponyboy dislikes the Socs, whom we see through
his subjective viewpoint. The distorting effects of hatred and group rivalry make his narration less than objective. Ponyboy
is young enough to have changeable conceptions of people, however, and over the course of the novel he realizes that Socs
have problems just as greasers do. He also comes to see that Socs are even similar to the greasers in some ways.
Ponyboy has a literary bent, which Hinton
uses to show that poverty does not necessarily mean boorishness or lack of culture, and that gang members are not always delinquents.
Ponyboy identifies with Pip, the impoverished protagonist of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations,
cites the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and introduces Johnny to the southern gentlemen of Margaret Mitchell’s Southern
epic, Gone with the Wind. With such an awareness of literary protagonists, Ponyboy sees
himself as he is, as both character and narrator. He takes on the narrator’s work of recounting events and the character’s
work of growing and changing as a result of those events. The novel is not just a story of gang rivalry; it is an account
of Ponyboy’s development.
Johnny Cade-is
a vulnerable sixteen-year-old greaser in a group defined by toughness and a sense of invincibility. He comes from an abusive
home, and he takes to the greasers because they are his only reliable family. While Johnny needs the greasers, the greasers
also need Johnny, for protecting him gives them a sense of purpose and justifies their violent measures. When Johnny, little
and vulnerable, suffers at the hands of the Socs, the greasers feel justified in their hatred of the rival gang.
Passive and quiet, Johnny is the principal
catalyst for the major events of the novel. He stands up to Dally at the drive-in and tells him to stop harassing the two
Soc girls, Cherry and Marcia. Johnny’s intervention on the girls’ behalf pleases
the girls, and they talk and walk with the greasers. This interaction between female Socs and male greasers sparks the anger
of the Soc boys and motivates them to attack Johnny and Ponyboy. Ultimately, Johnny’s small acts of courage lead to
murder, death, and heroic rescue. But Johnny ends by advocating against gang violence, stating that he would gladly sacrifice
his life for the lives of little children. Although a gentle boy, he has a profound impact with his startling, persistent
demand for peace. His courage in rescuing the children from the burning church and his subsequent death as a result of injuries
sustained in the rescue make him a martyr. Ponyboy’s decision to write the story that becomes The
Outsiders ensures that Johnny’s bravery will not be forgotten.
Cherry Valance-Before
Cherry Valance enters the narrative, Ponyboy paints the conflict between the greasers and the Socs as irreconcilable. The
introduction of Cherry, however, suggests that individual friendships can chip away at group hatreds. Cherry gets along perfectly
well with some of the greasers. She likes Ponyboy and Johnny because they treat her politely. Dally’s rude antics do
not amuse her. Her disenchantment with Dally’s behavior suggests that she talks to Ponyboy and Johnny not because she
is slumming and their greaser identity fascinates her, but rather because she likes them as individuals. For a short while
at least, she cares more about how each boy behaves than about his West Side or East Side address.
Cherry is not just a sweet, simple girl. She
finds herself sexually attracted to Dally, who is crass and unrefined but also sexy and charismatic. Despite all her attraction
to the greasers, moreover, she is not completely free of group prejudice. She tells Ponyboy she probably will not say hello
to him at school, acknowledging that she respects social divisions. Although Cherry plays a relatively small role in the novel,
the ambiguity of her sympathies gives us something to which we can relate. She mirrors our own perspective as someone close
to the action who is nevertheless an outsider and who does not always fully understand other characters’ emotions and
motivations.
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