Death In The Outsiders

Words: 860
Pages: 4

Death. The end of life. Pain. Grief. This can all change a person in many different ways. In The Outsiders, Ponyboy Curtis is a young boy who lives in a city where the greasers and the Socs are constantly fighting. This street violence often has a negative effect on the greasers, especially the ones that face getting physically harmed by the Socs. Ponyboy experiences death of some of the closest people in his life, despite his young age. A death can cause a major change in a person’s life forever. An event that completely changed Ponyboy’s life forever was the death of his parents. As a result of their death, Darrel is the legal guardian of Ponyboy and Sodapop. “Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay …show more content…
Following the death of Johnny, Dallas Winston was next. Dally just did not want to live in a world without Johnny, because it seemed impossible to bear. Ponyboy feels the pain after Dallas dies, although Dally had wanted to die as a result of what happened to Johnny. “Please, not him... not him and Johnny both ---I knew he would be dead, because Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.” (p. 131) Ponyboy knew that for Dally, living in a world without Johnny was nearly impossible to bear. The decision to raise the gun, knowing he would get shot was simply his way to die. However, Ponyboy now had to cope with the losses of two of his closest friends one after the other. He reflects on everything, between the deaths and exactly how they had happened. “Two friends of mine had died that night: one a hero, the other a hoodlum. But I remembered Dally pulling Johnny through the window of the burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble.” (p. 131) Ponyboy believes that although Dally’s death did not seem brave or courageous compared to Johnny’s, there really was courage and determination in the way he had chosen to die. So for Ponyboy, the loss of two friends had made his grief hurt just that much