Ponyboy’s Relationships Change Throughout The Story

Pony’s relationship changed a lot with key characters in “the outsiders” novel. Such as Darry, because he finds out how Darry really feels about him, his relationship with Cherry and Randy changes because he got to see how Socs are really like and with Soda, because he sees how him fighting with Darry is effecting him and he isn’t as tough as Pony originally thought.

Darry and Pony never had the best relationship, and to be honest it still isn’t that great at the end of the book. At first Pony believes that Darry doesn’t care for him and thinks that Darry thinks he is just a burden, especially after seeing how good Darry and Soda got along.

Before their parents died they got along really well like most brothers do, but when their parents died Darry took on all the responsibilities, making him grow up faster than he should of. As the story begins, it is apparent that Ponyboy considers Darry to be a leader and father-figure. As the chapters pass, however, Darry becomes stricter on Ponyboy. What Ponyboy fails to realize is that Darry, as a big brother, is still very much an adolescent himself, and is struggling to simply keep the family together, as seen when Ponyboy comes home at 2 a.m.; Darry responds with the threat that officials would "something like that could get you two thrown in a boy’s home so quick it’d make your heads spin" -page 61, if they didn't obey curfew.

Darry and Pony got into an argument resulting in Darry hitting Pony. This leads to Pony running off. He meets Johnny at the park and Johnny kills a Soc, then they run off to a Church to run from the “Fuzz”’, meaning police. After a week of staying at the abandon church, Dally brings them home. When Pony sees Darry again at the hospital, he was very upset and that’s when Pony realizes that he did love him, he just had a different way of showing it. Darry hugged him and said "i thought we lost you like we did mum and dad"-page 121. This is when Pony realizes that Darry didn’t yell at him to get him in trouble; it was because he was worried about him. When the Socs tried to hurt Pony at the start, Darry was mad about him walking alone because he didn’t want Ponyboy to get hurt. He also got really mad when Pony wastes his time because he didn’t want him to drop out of school and he wanted him to go to college, an opportunity Darry didn’t have because he didn’t have the money, a fight in which Darry and Pony had at the end of the book. Soda runs off when they try make him take sides, resulting in Soda making them promise to never fight again because they are the only family they have left.

First Pony thinks that Socs get whatever they want, they don’t get punished for doing anything bad and that they are superior. They are the rival socially acceptable group. They have cars, play football, and live life well. Pony believes that they are the exact opposite of him and his gang, the greasers. When Pony Boy meets Cherry, Bob's girlfriend and one of the Soc crowd, he discovers what Socs are like. He has never had the opportunity to know one before. For the first time he learns that they have problems and conflicts as well. He also learns that not all of them are mean and look down on him. In addition, he learns that he can share his feelings with Cherry. He begins to realize that the Greasers and Socs have some things in common. This is the same with Randy. Pony first thought he was just another Soc. A friend of Bob, the boy one of his best friends had killed, was Randy. He really began to show what he was like after Johnny had killed is best friend. He believed that all the fighting between the 2 groups was ridiculous and that it doesn’t do any good.

"And tonight... people get hurt in rumbles, maybe killed. I'm sick of it because it doesn't do any good. You can't win; you know that, don't you? You can't win, even if you whip us. You'll still be where you were before… at the bottom. And we'll still be the lucky ones with all the breaks. So it doesn't do any good, the fighting and the killing. It doesn't prove a thing. We'll forget it if you win, or if you don't. Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs. Sometimes I think it's the ones in the middle that are really the lucky stiffs..."-page 142-143.

Randy comes to visit Pony because after he missed several days from school. Randy tells Ponyboy that he came over to see how he was doing and talk about the trial of Bobs death, he talks about how his dad told him to be honest and that no one would get hurt. Not thinking of what Ponyboy has suffered, Randy says he is worried about being associated with the violence. They discuss the hearing scheduled for the next day.

"My dad says to tell the truth and nobody can get hurt. He's kind of upset about all this. I mean, my dad's a good guy and everything, better than most, and I kind of let him down, being mixed up in all this. I wouldn't mind getting fined, but I feel lousy about the old man. And it's the first time I've felt anything in a long time."- page 198-199

Soda makes the whole group think that he is tough, easy going and carefree, Pony described him as a "long-legged palomino colt that has to get his nose into everything"-page 101. But the truth is that he has a sensitive side, which Pony later realises. Pony use to always rely on Soda when he was in need of help, but Pony never consider that Soda needed help as well. First he saw how upset Soda got when his girlfriend, Sandy, dumped him and moved out of town. She was pregnant but the baby wasn’t Sodas, meaning that she cheated on Soda and didn’t love him as much as he loved her. He still wanted to marry her.

The biggest sign was at the end, when Darry and Pony were fighting about Ponys grades, he cracked under the pressure and ran off. Soda couldn't stand to see Ponyboy and Darry fight anymore, because there was nothing left of their family after their parents died. Soda ran out because he is sick and tired of all the fighting. He understands both sides and loves each of his brothers equally, but he feels as if they are trying to make him take sides and he can't do that because he saw both sides very clearly and had some agreements with both and didn’t want to upset anyone. He felt like he was in the middle of the fights all the time and couldn't take a side. He tells Darry to stop being so hard on Ponyboy and he tells Pony to use his head, he makes them agree to stop fighting and they do.

So to concluded, this is why Ponyboy’s relationship change with some characters. With Dally because he finds out that Darry does really care about him, his relationship with Cherry and Randy changes because he got to see how Socs are really like and with Soda, because he sees how him fighting with Darry is effecting him and he isn’t as tough as Pony originally thought.