Who Are You

Sam Queen
11/29/11
How We Change Throughout Our Experience
Authors Note: This piece is about the character development of Randy and how he is a dynamic character.
Everywhere you look there are people who are misjudged in society, whether it is at work, in school, or just by people in general. The greasers are a perfect example of those kinds of people in society. The group who looked down upon them was a group called the Socs. These were the upper class kids who are a group of over privileged teens. One of them is Randy; he is one of the “Super Socs” who thinks the greasers are all mean and nasty. Randy is a dynamic character because when he actually looks at the situation from the greasers point he realizes that they are just people with a different story to tell.

One reason why Randy is a dynamic character is because he says “And tonight… people get hurt in rumbles, maybe killed. I’m sick of it because it doesn’t do you any good. You can’t win you, know that, don’t you?” When Johnny killed Bob in the park it changed Randy’s life. Randy was Bob’s best friend and that night his life was changed forever. Randy went from being a Soc who judged the heck out the greasers to becoming a person who looks at both sides of the situation before judging someone. Another way that Randy is a dynamic character is because he helps Ponyboy realize that the Socs are susceptible to pain and have problems too.

While helping Ponyboy understand more about the Socs, learning that there is no point in fighting between the Greasers and the Socs is important also. Randy says that “Greasers will still be Greasers and Socs will still be Socs. Sometimes I think that it is the ones in the middle that are the lucky stiffs…” He means that he can’t stand the fighting and all the tension between these two groups. Because Randy is saying that no matter how hard each group tries no one will be able to climb the ladder up to being a Soc or fall down to being a Greaser.

While S.E Hinton does a fantastic job describing how Randy is a dynamic character. There are other authors who do a fine job too. One example of a dynamic character is Edmund from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Edmund goes from being a snotty, stuck up little brat, to being King Edmund the brave, just and loyal through a turn of events. Another example of a dynamic character would be the beast from Beauty and the Beast. The beast goes from being a savage brute who show no signs of sympathy or compassion to a person who would fight to the death for the person he loved.

When you look at things from a different perspective you can come to understand what the other person or group feels when you judge them. That is why Randy is a dynamic character.

Main Topic and Idea

Sam Queen
11/21/11
Defying Stereotypes

Authors Note: This is response is about one of the main ideas about the book “The Outsiders.”

I think that this book is mainly about how Ponyboy and Johnny defy the typical stereotype about how all the greasers are bad people who have no future other than going to federal prison. The reason I think that these two defy the stereotype is because they risked their lives and ran into a burning church to save kids they had never even met before. “Suddenly, in the red glow and the haze, I remembered wondering what it was like in a burning ember, and I thought: Now I know it’s a red hell. Why aren’t I scared? (pg 82). This is a quote that directly relates to the theme defying stereotypes because Ponyboy and Johnny both risked their lives for innocent little kids.

That really makes you think wow, these guys must be different no normal greaser would do that. When you think about in no way Dally or Steve goes in there to save the kids because they are the “typical greaser,” their parents are dead or they have completely estranged them because they either beat them or treated them like the dirt, always stepping on them. That is why Ponyboy and Johnny defy the stereotype because they think of others before themselves while most greasers think of themselves before others. Another reason why these two are different is because when they were at the double drive-in movie Dally was being exceedingly nasty to some girls named Cherry and Marcia who were Socs.



But when Dally gets driven away by them Cherry turns around and asks them if they were going to act the way he did and they respond by saying, never. That really shows the real character these two have. Then later it turns out that she helps them by being their informer/spy in a sense by just keeping them up to speed on the latest plots or schemes by the Socs.