Why Does Ponyboy Hate Green Eyes?
The Outsiders Final 5 Paragraph Essay S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders is a novel that follows a group of boys growing up in the 1960s who have to face prejudice and stereotypes on a daily basis. The author uses multiple examples of prejudice in the novel to demonstrate the destructive nature of prejudice on the characters in the story, such as fights between characters, friendships being torn apart, and people feeling ashamed of who they are and which social class they belong in.
The first examples of prejudice shown in the novel are fights and hate between the two social classes. As a result of prejudice, many characters got into fights and there was a lot of hate between the two classes. The first example of these fights is between the greasers and the Socs. Both classes disliked each other, just because of prejudice.
The greasers assumed that all Socs were condescending, egocentric, and gaudy, and all the Socs identified the greasers as dangerous hoods. Therefore, lots of Socs would jump the greasers and vice versa. The next example of prejudice and hate is the fact that Ponyboy hates all guys with green eyes (page 1, chapter 1) only because he associates green eyes with Socs.
What does eye color symbolize in The Outsiders?
Eye Shape and Color – Though Hinton gives thorough physical descriptions of all her characters, she places particular importance on their eyes. Characters’ eyes represent key facets of their personalities. For example, Darry and Dally—the two boys with whom Ponyboy feels the least comfortable—have icy blue eyes.
What color eyes does Ponyboy have in The Outsiders?
Ponyboy Curtis: has long, light brown (almost red) hair and greenish-grey eyes.
What do Ponyboys eyes symbolize?
When Ponyboy visualizes someone he encounters for the reader, their eyes seem to reflect the rest of them. For example, when he describes Darry, his eldest brother, he is sure to include that ‘He’s got eyes like two pieces of pale blue-green ice. They’ve got a determined set to them, like the rest of him.’ (Hinton, 6).
What do black vampire eyes mean?
Twilight: What Different Vampire Eye Colors Mean –
05 November 2022 Screen Rant
The Twilight franchise had its very own unique version of vampires, and among their most defining physical characteristics was the differing colors of their vampire eyes — here’s why they changed and what each color of vampire eye means in Twilight,
- Starting with Stephanie Meyer’s book series of the same name, the story at the heart of Twilight features a long timeline that, although the focus is on the present, has backstory going back 1500 years.
- Throughout that history, characters’ eye color changes, based on their current lifestyle and choices.
When Bella meets Edward, he has black eyes, which days later change to gold, and she even asks him if he’s wearing contacts. In the world of Twilight, when vampires have black eyes it means they need to feed. A vampire’s eyes will go from their natural color, which depends on their diet, to black, darkening more and more the thirstier they get.
- This, in some ways, causes him to feel like the odd man out among his gang, in addition to the fact that he is the youngest.
- This sensitivity also contributes to his tendency to take anything his brother, Darry, says personally without looking at it from his point of view.
- Furthermore, his youth and vulnerability mean that Johnny and Dally’s deaths hit him harder than anyone else.
- He is a high school dropout and works at the local gas station.
- He is “movie-star” handsome.
- Darrel (Darry) Shayne Curtis The 20-year-old brother and legal guardian of Ponyboy and Soda.
- He works too hard and too long, and would be in college, if life had turned out different.
- Dallas (Dally) Winston A fellow greaser, who is originally from New York City.
- Johnny Cade kills Bob during an altercation when some Socs try to drown Ponyboy.
- Randy Adderson The owner of the blue Mustang that haunts Johnny.
- He is Bob’s best friend and fellow Soc.
- Tim Shepard A fellow greaser, but not a member of the main characters’ gang.
- His greaser gang is rougher, and the members are termed “future convicts.” He is both Dally’s main rival and friend.
- As the story ends, gang tensions still exist, and Ponyboy still feels anger.
- Yet he is about to embark upon an intelligent exploration of his tragedies by writing about them.
- How is “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” the Robert Frost poem that Ponyboy recites to Johnny at the church, relevant to Ponyboy and Johnny’s story? “Nothing Gold Can Stay” offers Ponyboy and Johnny a way to understand their lives; it gives the boys a framework for the traumatic events of their story.
- Also frequently called upon is the theme of honor among the lawless.
- The notion that there is honor among those who denounce authority is evident throughout the novel.
- The greasers abide by an unwritten code that requires they defend their own, whether that be to their enemies or the authorities.
- There were even times where members of the group would take the blame from crimes committed by their friends in an act of solidarity, or to protect the other from the pending fallout.
- Ponyboy’s parents were killed in an automobile accident, leaving him and his two brothers on their own.
- Ponyboy is the youngest at 14, Sodapop is 16, and Darry is 20.
- The authorities allow the three brothers to stay together as long as they “behave.” Ponyboy resents Darry and the total control that he attempts to wield over his life; he views their relationship as adversarial and looks to Sodapop for understanding and love.
- As he attempts to fend off his attackers, Ponyboy hears the pounding of footsteps and the attack turns into an all-out fight as his gang arrives to rescue him from the Socs’ attack.
- Ponyboy’s two brothers, Darry and Sodapop, along with their four other gang members, chase the Socs away; Ponyboy escapes with cuts and bruises.
- Sodapop has become the nurturing mother; he always sticks up for Ponyboy and tries to explain Darry’s love for him.
- Also an issue within any family is an individual’s own expectations of other family members.
- For example, in the novel, Darry wants Ponyboy to get all A’s and expects nothing less.
- However, Ponyboy wants Darry to be supportive, regardless of the grades he receives.
- Teens often see only two sides — black and white — of every issue.
- The author’s use of colors not only helps the characters begin to see the middle range, but also enables the reader to discover the many layers in this book.
- Describing Dally, Hinton alludes to the color range: “The shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn’t present in Dally.” Hinton descriptively stresses the colors of the characters’ eyes, hair, and even clothing, as well as their environment.
- By giving readers such extreme details of hair and eye coloration, the author suggests that perhaps the greasers primarily see the world through a filter of chilling inequity.
- A minor theme prevalent throughout Western literature and established here in Chapter 1 is the power of three.
- This is a dominant theme found in many fairy tales and much folklore, and thus it makes sense that it would also appear in the narration of a story told by a 14-year-old boy.
- Writing his story becomes a way for Pony to deal with the generous portions of grief that keep coming his way.
- When we meet Pony, both of his parents have already died in a car accident and he’s being raised by his brothers.
- We understand Ponyboy’s moodiness, forgetfulness, and confusion intimately (being fourteen sucks), but, given his biography, these character traits are even more understandable.
What does Ponyboy love?
Personality: Ponyboy Character Traits – Ponyboy is a dynamic and well-developed character in this story. Each member of the greaser gang has defined traits, and Ponyboy’s are explored in the most depth. Sensitive While most of the greasers are characterized as “hard” or “tuff,” Ponyboy likes to read books, talk about sunsets, and recite poetry.
In other ways, however, his sensitivity is an asset. He is able to relate to Cherry Valance even though she is a Soc because he can empathize with her despite their differences. He is also able to extend forgiveness to Randy after all is said and done, showing his maturity throughout the novel.
Naïve As discussed, Ponyboy is the youngest in his gang, and he also lost his parents at a critical point in his development, resulting in a lack of guidance. At times, this naïveté causes him to be impulsive in his decision making. After Johnny killed Bob, Ponyboy was the one who insisted they run away rather than going to Darry for help.
He also rushed into the burning church without thinking about possible consequences. Yes, this made him a hero to those children and that community, but it also transforms into guilt later on once Johnny is fatally injured in the fire. Lastly, Ponyboy does not consider his own physical state when he goes to fight in the rumble.
What is ponyboy’s real name?
Character List – Ponyboy Michael Curtis A 14-year-old boy who is the narrator and main character in The Outsiders, His parents have been killed in an automobile accident, and he lives with his two brothers. Soda(pop) Patrick Curtis Ponyboy’s 16-going-on-17-year-old brother.
He is a bit tougher than the others in Ponyboy’s gang, and at 17 he has already seen the inside of a jail. Johnny Cade The “gang’s pet.” He is 16 years old, physically small, and comes from a physically and verbally abusive home. Dally is his hero. Steve Randle Soda’s best friend and fellow greaser.
He is 17 and works at the gas station with Soda. Keith (Two-Bit) Mathews The oldest of the gang, except for Darry, and still a junior in high school at age 18. He is the wisecracking comedian of the gang. Sherri (Cherry) Valance A cheerleader and the girlfriend of Bob, the Soc who is killed. Cherry and Ponyboy meet at the drive-in and become friends.
Cherry is attracted to Dally, and becomes a spy for the greasers. Marcia Cherry’s girlfriend at the drive-in. She gives Two-Bit her phone number, but he throws it away. Bob Sheldon The Soc who originally attacked Johnny, and then attacks both Johnny and Pony in the park.
Jerry Wood The overweight man at the church fire. He rides along with Pony in the ambulance and calls the boys heroes. Pony confides everything to him, and he still calls them heroes. Buck Merril Dally’s rodeo partner, a man in his mid 20s. Johnny and Pony find Dally at Buck’s party.
What does Ponyboy fear?
Compare and contrast Johnny and Dally. What roles do they play in the novel? What roles do they play In Ponyboy’s life? The Outsiders is a novel of conflicts—greaser against Soc, rich against poor, the desire for violence against the desire for reconciliation.
Dally and Johnny do not battle against each other, but they are opposites. Johnny is meek, fearful, and childlike, while Dally is hard, cynical, and dangerous. As they near the ends of their lives, however, Johnny becomes strong and Dally becomes weak. Once-meek Johnny faces death with calm determination.
He writes a strong, commanding note to Ponyboy, and he also transcends his meekness by refusing to see the mother who has always neglected him. Dally, on the other hand, is weakened by grief. He runs from Johnny’s deathbed in a fit of uncontrollable sadness.
In Ponyboy’s view, Dally commits suicide by baiting the police and then showing them a gun, thus forcing the police to shoot him. Dally sheds his tough, cool exterior and reveals the fear that actually rules his behavior. In Ponyboy’s life, Dally and Johnny represent the qualities of innocence and strength that Ponyboy must reconcile.
Dally and Johnny need one another. Johnny worships Dally’s toughness and savvy, and Dally loves Johnny’s vulnerability and openness, which remind him of the qualities he has lost after a lifetime on the street. Ponyboy realizes that he cannot become wholly naïve or wholly tough.
He cannot stop being a greaser in order to retain his innocence or sacrifice his ideals in order to become a toughened gangster. He must learn how to be like both Dally and Johnny.2. Discuss Ponyboy’s evolving conception of the Socs. How does his opinion of the Socs at the end of the novel differ from his opinion at the beginning? Over the course of the novel, Ponyboy’s opinion of the Socs shifts.
As his understanding of them changes, Ponyboy sees the Socs either in a negative light or more sympathetically. At the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy, like all of the greasers, hates and fears the Socs. He thinks of them as dangerous enemies. After he meets Cherry at the movie theater, however, Ponyboy begins to realize that Socs are human just like greasers.
He sees that he and Cherry appreciate many of the same things, like sunsets. His empathy for the Socs suffers a setback, however, after a group of them attacks him and Johnny in the park. When Ponyboy rescues the schoolchildren from the burning church, it opens him up to the idea of a human compassion that transcends gang loyalties.
Later, Ponyboy talks with the Soc Randy about the rescue, and the two come to a peaceable understanding. Still, Ponyboy does not miraculously shed his animosity toward the Socs, not even after Johnny pleads with him to stop fighting. His traumatic experiences have scarred him.
The poem likens the inevitable loss of innocence that the boys experience to the wilting of flowers. Sunrises transform the night into day, flowers wilt, and paradise is destroyed. In the poem, the conditions of existence dictate that everything loses its initial innocence.
This loss of youth and purity does not have to be devastating, however. By using a metaphor from nature, Frost suggests that the loss of innocence is as natural as the death of a flower. Both losses must be accepted as an inevitable part of the cycle of life. Because of their poverty, the greasers will inevitably suffer losses and sacrifices.
In citing the poem, Johnny and Ponyboy acknowledge that this loss is unavoidable but not that the loss of beauty is inevitable. Before he dies, Johnny urges Ponyboy to “tay gold,” to hold onto those ideals that will outlast his loss of youth and innocence.
What are 3 symbols in the outsiders?
The Outsiders Themes and Symbols – A Research Guide for Students Literature Guides The majority of the book the Outsiders focuses on attempts to bridge the gap between social classes, namely between the rich and the poor. As Hinton suggests, the differences in socioeconomic status is not necessarily what makes the Socs and the greasers rivals, but rather their inability to come to terms with love, fear, sorrow and grief.
The most important symbols used in the Outsiders are Two-Bit’s prized switchblade, Bob’s rings and the greaser hairstyle. Two-Bit’s Switchblade His most prized possession, the switchblade is representative of a strong disregard for authority – something the greasers regularly ignore.
The blade is stolen, and later it represents individual power and the potential for violence. Towards the end of the book, the police take the switchblade from Dally’s corpse, linking the weapon with Dally – the member of the greasers who personifies authority and power. Bob’s Rings Bob’s rings are a symbol of wealth, but they also represent the physical power that comes from being wealthy.
Physical power that he uses to prove his superiority over Ponyboy and the rest of the greasers. The Greaser Hairstyle The greasers are not able to afford the same luxuries as the Socs. This means that they must explore other avenues of establishing their identity.
What color is Darry’s eyes?
Summary and Analysis Chapter 1 – Summary The Outsiders is narrated by the main character, Ponyboy Curtis. The story is placed in Oklahoma during the 1960s. In the first chapter, Ponyboy introduces himself and gives a brief history of his family. He also describes the relationships between his gang members, and the relationships within his own family.
The brothers consider their gang members — Steve Randle, Two-Bit Mathews, Dallas Winston, and Johnny Cade — to be family. All of the members come from dysfunctional homes and need the gang relationship as a substitute for what is missing in their own families.
As Ponyboy walks home alone after going to a movie, he realizes the inherent danger of doing so. He explains to the reader that he is a greaser, a term “used to class all us boys on the East Side,” which is the poor side of town. Greasers are known for their long, greased hair. Walking home alone is dangerous because the rival gang, the Socs, could easily attack him.
The Socs, short for Socials, are “the jet set, the West-side rich kids,” who are from upper-middle-class families. Ponyboy explains that the gangs are “just small bunches of friends who stick together, and the warfare is between the social classes.” As if foreshadowing Ponyboy’s own poor decision to walk alone, a carload of four Socs arrives, and one pulls a knife on him.
Analysis The narration of this story by a 14-year-old boy allows for the novel to be written in an easy-to-read format. The first chapter introduces three major themes immediately. An outsider’s view. Many of the characters feel like outsiders and believe that life isn’t fair to them, but the novel shows that the reality is a matter of perspective.
Whether someone defines himself or herself as an outsider or insider depends on his or her personal perspective or viewpoint. Life from an outsider’s perspective is not only one of the main themes, but the one for which the novel is named. An outsider sees things differently than someone who is directly involved in a way of life.
The East Side greasers are “outsiders” to the West side of town, the “rich” side. To an outsider, West-side life can look very appealing, but it is unappreciated by the Socs who live there. Ponyboy says of the greasers, “We’re poorer than the Socs and the middle class.
I reckon we’re wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks.,” Someone who always feels like an outsider may conclude that life is unfair. Pony and the rest of the greasers must deal with the hardship in their own lives, while the Socs enjoy all the advantages of class privilege.
This “life isn’t fair” theme is prevalent throughout the book and concerns the issue of inclusion versus exclusion, of fitting in. The idea that life is not fair is a matter of perspective. In this chapter, Ponyboy analyzes the Socs’ lives through his own eyes, an outsider’s perspective, which can only see and understand one view.
After the Socs attack Pony, he thinks, “I had just as much right to use the streets as the Socs did, and Johnny had never hurt them. Why did the Socs hate us so much?” Realistic family love. Family love and the intricate relationships that are forged therein is another theme touched on in Chapter 1. During adolescence, many people begin to examine their own roles in their family structures.
Ponyboy’s relationship with his two brothers symbolizes the traditional dual-parent relationship. Darry has taken over the role of the father, the disciplinarian and the rule maker; Ponyboy even notes a physical resemblance between his real father and Darry.
Colors in a black and white world. This theme focuses on a teenager’s tendency to see only the extremes of an issue, not the gray areas. This idea underscores many issues that affect an adolescent’s life. The third theme of colors in a black and white world is important in building the depth of the novel.
Generally, she associates warm colors with the Socs and cool colors with the greasers. Warmth usually is equated with inside and cool is associated with outside, and the colors reflect the characters’ positions in society: The greasers view the Socs as insiders and themselves as outsiders.
The cool colors representative of Ponyboy’s gang emphasize that they are continually forced to be outsiders looking in. In Hinton’s original descriptions of Ponyboy’s gang, she uses primarily cool colors. Ponyboy’s eyes are greenish-gray, Darry’s eyes “are like two pieces of pale blue-green ice,” Dally’s hair “was almost white it was so blond” and his eyes are “blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred,” and Two-Bit Mathews has gray eyes.
However, in describing Soda, she acknowledges that his hair color changes in the summertime. “He’s got dark-gold hair that, in the summer the sun bleaches it to a shining wheat-gold.” This description shows change, and the color combinations that are in the middle, not the extremes.
Hinton introduces the theme here with the three brothers. Together they have the strength to be a family and face the challenges that the world offers. Note that as the novel opens, Ponyboy, one of the three brothers, is alone and thus more vulnerable than if he were with his two brothers.
Glossary Paul Newman (b.1925) popular actor known for his good looks and blue eyes. Corvair a Chevrolet automobile model. madras a fine, firm cotton cloth, usually striped or plaid, used for shirts, dresses, and so on. Will Rogers (born William Penn Adair Rogers ) (1879-1935) U.S. humorist and actor. the cooler jail.
savvy to understand; get the idea.
What are some of Ponyboys worst qualities?
Ponyboy Curtis in The Outsiders | Shmoop Ponyboy not only has just about the best name we’ve ever heard of (we dare you to start calling yourself Kittenlad or Rottweilergal), but also has a real flair for the written word. Ponyboy is fourteen, is our narrator, and has a ton to say about himself and his world.
even if we can’t all relate to his trials and tribulations. And these attitudes and behaviors only increase after Johnny and Dallas die. Ponyboy barely knows where he is or what he’s doing: I wasn’t scared. It was the oddest feeling in the world. I didn’t feel anything – scared, mad, or anything.
Just zero. (12.13) The world is a hostile place he can’t cope with. He’s slipping away, and he’s doing things that aren’t in his best interest, almost against his will. That’s part of why the ending of this novel is so awesome: Pony finds a way to live in the world again through writing, self expression, and reaching out to his teachers and peers: Suddenly it wasn’t only a personal thing to me.
I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities. Hundreds of boys who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better. (12.65)
Can 2 brown-eyed people have a blue-eyed child?
Myth: Two blue-eyed parents can’t produce a child with brown eyes. Fact: Two blue-eyed parents can have a child with brown eyes, although it’s very rare. Likewise, two brown-eyed parents can have a child with blue eyes, although this is also uncommon.