Written Assessment Essay

Outsiders

In this essay of ‘The Outsiders’ I am writing about important relationships within the written text, and explaining how they had a positive or negative influence on other characters. The important relationships in ‘The Outsiders’  I am writing about are Darry and Ponyboy, Dally and Johnny, Ponyboy and Johnny and Sodapop, Darry and Ponyboy.

The first relationship I will be writing about is Darry and Ponyboy. Darry and Ponyboy were brothers, Darry was the oldest of three and Ponyboy was the youngest. Ponyboy and Darry would get into fights with each other over what Ponyboy was doing. Darry was overprotective of Ponyboy in Ponyboy’s mind and Ponyboy didn’t use his head in Darry’s mind. One night when Johnny and Ponyboy were out at the vacant lot watching the stars, Johnny and Ponyboy fell asleep, they didn’t wake up until 3am the next morning, when they did Ponyboy rushed home and tried sneaking in the house. Darry was sitting on the couch waiting for him. Darry became enraged as Ponyboy told him he had fallen asleep in the vacant lot with Johnny. At that moment Darry hit Ponyboy. After Darry realising what he did he apologised profusely, but Ponyboy ran out the door back to see if Johnny was still there. After Darry hits Ponyboy, Ponyboy ran  away with Johnny.  Johnny had murdered Bob, one of the Soc and he didn’t want to go to jail.  This had a negative influence because Ponyboy already thought Darry didn’t like him, but to Ponyboy this proved it. Darry hitting him pushed him over the edge. Ponyboy had decided that the best thing for him to do was run away, with the help of Johnny and Dallas. S.E Hinton did this to show the audience that people can do things they don’t mean in the spear of the moment and regret it straight away. Darry did as was shown and he became upset with himself because no one had hit anyone in their family before. When Ponyboy ran away he became scared for Ponyboy’s safety. Darry and Ponyboy’s relationship was a long fight which carried on for a while. People do things they don’t mean just because they were worried or scared. Darry and Ponyboy like most siblings fight, but always will come together when they need each other. They love and couldn’t live without each other. This reminded me of when in ‘Kanin’ by Amanda Hocking when Bryn left Doldam after being sentenced for treason, she missed Ridley a lot while she was on the run and all she wanted to do was call him even though they were angry at each other and didn’t want to talk.

Another relationship in ‘The Outsiders’ what I thought had a negative influence on another character was Johnny and Dally. Dally and Johnny were members of the gang. Johnny lived with his mother and his father but he had a bad life. Dally loved Johnny and Johnny was the only thing Dally loved in the world. Dally helped Johnny and Ponyboy run away after Johnny murder the Soc and kept the police away from them. One day Dally went and visited Johnny and Ponyboy, they had been staying in an abandoned church in Windrixville. They went down to the local Dairy Queen and when they came back to the church in was set ablaze. There was a bunch of young school children in front of the church counting to check if they had all the children. Ponyboy and Johnny could hear children’s screams coming from inside the burning church. The jumped through a window and saved them. When they were escaping the roof collapsed on top of Johnny and a couple weeks later he died in hospital. Dally lost the only thing in the world he loved and he robbed a convenience store. The police shot him because they through he was armed, the greaser knew that was what he wanted to died. Dally and Johnny had an interesting relationship, because you didn’t know they relationship was that strong until Dally chose to die to be with him. Johnny’s death had a negative influence on Dally because in the end he died to be with Johnny because he couldn’t live without him. S.E Hinton did this to show the strong connection between Dally and Johnny even though they weren’t brothers, Dally was like Johnny’s older brother. It showed that even if you think they are hard as rocks and only care about themselves, they don’t. They care about others as much as themselves maybe more it is just a shield to cover what is inside.

As well as Johnny and Dally and Ponyboy and Darry. Another important relationship that has an influence on another character was Ponyboy and Johnny. After Darry slapped Ponyboy he ran back to the vacant lot where Johnny was lying on the ground watching the stars. They went for a walk to calm Ponyboy down before he went back home. As they were walking through the park a blue Mustang pulled up and a group of Soc jumped out, they were drunk. One grabbed Ponyboy and started to drown him in the fountain. As this was going on Johnny had stabbed a Soc named Bob which had killed him. After Johnny stabbed Bob the rest of the Soc felled in the blue Mustang. When Ponyboy came too they decided to run away with help from Dally. Ponyboy and Johnny’s relationship was strong because Ponyboy left his brothers and friends behind to go with Johnny and keep him safe. Ponyboy didn’t want Johnny to go to jail and rot in a cell. So Ponyboy and Johnny ran away to Windrixville. This had a large influence on Ponyboy because they had decided to run away instead of confessing to the police. The purpose of this was to allow the audience to see the connection between them and how much they loved each other and how Ponyboy didn’t want Johnny to go to jail like Dally did and end up like him. This reminded me of when Ridley and Thalia left Doldam secretly to find Bryn and make sure she was okay. The could of stayed and just hoped for the best but the rest the lives trying to escape and find Bryn.

Lastly the final important relationship I am going to write about that had an influence on another character was Sodapop, Darry and Ponyboy. Ponyboy, Sodapop and Darry were brothers. Ponyboy was the youngest, Sodapop was the middle child and Darry was the oldest. Darry and Ponyboy would get into lots of fight and Sodapop would get caught up in the middle of them. He would back Darry and Ponyboy because they were both right but both wrong in his opinion. Darry looked after Ponyboy and Sodapop. He would make sure Ponyboy was getting good grades and Sodapop went to work, he was like their dad. S.E Hinton did this to show that when people fight sometimes people get caught up in the middle of them and they don’t like it. They try there best but it is hard to keep everyone happy and keep yourself while everyone is fighting. This reminded me of when parents fight. They might not realise but it hurts the people around them not just them. It could hurt your family, friends and yourself. Like what I said in the first paragraph about Darry and Ponyboy they fight like all siblings do, but they always will love each other.