The book The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is about outsiders. The story takes place in a city called Tulsa in the state of Oklahoma. Johnny, Dally, and Ponyboy are three Greasers. Greasers are the poor, tough guys who live there (they are named Greasers after their obsession of greasing their long hair.) Randy and Bob are Socs. Socs are the rich guys who jump random Greasers, and of course the Greasers hate them. In The Outsiders Johnny, Dally, and Ponyboy all make important decisions that change their lives, for better or for worse.
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“He was the gang’s pet, everyone’s kid brother.” (page 14) That is how Ponyboy describes Johnny. Johnny had been quiet and scared ever since a group of Socs jumped him. It was really bad, too. His parents beat him also. Johnny is like a shadow, a shadow that everyone in their gang loved and took care of. One day a group of Socs jumped Johnny and Ponyboy. In the group were Randy and Bob. Bob held Ponyboy’s head under the water of a fountain and was drowning him. Johnny stabbed Bob in self defense and ended up killing him. Randy and the others escaped. Johnny and Ponyboy knew that if they stayed they would get the death sentence for killing Bob, and so the went to Dally.
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Dally was the tough guy. The guy that owned a gun, and shop lifted for fun. His Dad was wild, but Dally did not live with him much. Dally loved Johnny like a brother. Johnny was the only person he loved; he was Dally’s life. Dally would risk anything for Johnny. Dally told Johnny and Ponyboy of an old church were they could hide for a while. Johnny and Ponyboy went there and Dally went to check on them. They all went to get some groceries and when they got back to the church, it was on fire. There were a few little kid in the burning building and Ponyboy, Dally, and Johnny went in to rescue them. They got all the little kids out. Ponyboy was fine, Dally was burned but healed in about a week, but Johnny was in bad shape. Johnny was so burnt that he died in the hospital. Dally was so sad when Johnny died that he took action that led to Police Assisted Suicide. He shop lifted then when the cops were chasing him, he pointed an unloaded gun at them. They shot him. He died.
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Johnny was a good guy and he only killed Bob in self defense. Just because he was a Greaser did not mean he was bad. Greasers and even Socs can be good. Johnny definitely was not bad; he saved the lives of the kids in the church. He just did some bad things like kill Bob. Just because Bob died did not make him an angel. Johnny killed him because he was drowning Ponyboy. “I had to. They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you. And they had a blade… they were gonna beat me up…” (page 57) Killing Bob could have been avoided if they were not there when the Socs showed up, but they were. It could have also been avoided by only knocking Bob unconscious.
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Dally’s choice to send Johnny and Ponyboy to the church was a good choice. If he did not Ponyboy would have gone to jail and Johnny would have faced the death sentence. Of course, they could have made sure that their cigarettes were not still burning before leaving to get groceries.
Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally’s choice to save the children from the fire was good. They saved lives, plus proved that Greasers are not all that bad. Of course, the whole situation could have been avoided by stomping out their cigarettes. Since it was too late and the fire had already started, it was good that they saved the kids. They could have avoided being hurt by going quicker, and getting out more quickly.
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Dally should have never committed police assisted suicide. He should have toughened up instead of making a spur of the moment decision to kill himself. Johnny would never have done that, he always had hope. Any last bit of hope Dally had died with Johnny.
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The decisions that Johnny and Dally made changed their lives. Some of them were good, like Dally’s decision to send Johnny and Ponyboy to the church. Some of them could have been done without bad things happening, like Johnny did not have to kill Bob. And some of them were really bad such as Dally committing suicide. All in all, they could have thought all their decisions through a bit more and perhaps some of the bad things might not have happened.