1. PONYBOY ANALYSIS
By Debbie Lee 8E

2. Who’s he?

3. 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.

4. 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
yo!
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.

5. Morals

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. Personality

9. 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.

10. 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.