One of the major connections “Sonny’s Blues” and The Outsiders have is stereotypes. Sonny is a dropout who does heroin because it makes him feel good. Ponyboy is a greaser who is of a lower class and gets in trouble with the cops. Both of these characters try to sow what they aren’t. Sonny shows his brother that he is a musician and not some drug addict. He shows this when he begins to play for him. “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.” (Baldwin 21) Ponyboy shows that not all greasers are bad by saving kids from a fire along with a close friend named Johnny Cade. Another one of Ponyboy’s friends, Two-Bit stated “Y’all were heroes from
