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Growth In Hinton's The Outsiders

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Growth In Hinton's The Outsiders
From reading the book it was pretty clear that Ponyboy had a rough family life. It is a huge part of Ponyboys growth realizing his family was the most important thing to him but hadn’t realized this until it was too late. Ever since his parents died he has been under the care of Darry. Ponyboy always felt like Darry never loved him because he could never please him. "He's as hard as a rock and about as human...he thinks I'm a pain in the neck. He likes Soda--everybody likes Soda--but he can't stand me." (Hinton 42) . If Ponyboy were to bring home B’s, he demanded A’s and if he got A’s he wanted his marks to stay that way. He felt like he was the one always hollered at band Darry doesn’t love him like he does Soda. Ponyboy had to realize that …show more content…
He was a Greaser but has been frightened by the Socs. He has been stereotyped as a juvenile delinquent by and has always been made fun of. Ever since Ponyboy has been brought into this gang life he fails to see the good side in any Soc and is to stick together with the Greasers believing that each one of them lives up to their name as being the jet set rich kids. However, there is one input from a Soc that makes Ponyboy realize that the Socs and Greasers both go through the same struggles, Cherry. She opened up Pony’s eyes to believe that there is only one difference between the Socs and Greasers. “You Greaser have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re more sophisticated--cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us.” (Hinton 33) From this Ponyboy learned that you can’t just judge someone from what people tell you or how you have been taught to know them as growing up. Each and every Soc has their own problems that their going though, just like the Greasers and Pony also believed that maybe their worlds weren't so different because they both watched the same sunset, which was a big part of Pony’s life. Pony had to step into the Soc’s shoes to realize that things are rough all over, no matter a Soc or

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