Similarities And Differences In The Outsiders, By S. E. Hinton

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only our love and friendship can create the illusion for the moment, that we are not alone”(Orson Welles). If friends did not have each other everyone would be alone. In the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Johnny and Dally have similarities and differences.

When Johnny and Dally are not out with the gang, they both have bad home lives. Johnny’s parents abuse him while he is at his home, his father is “always beating him up, and his mother ignored him”(12). The time Johnny spends at his house his parents neglect him and abuse him. Johnny mentions that the only time his parents know he is ok and his location is, when they are using physical force on him. When he does not stay at his house he crashes in a vacant lot or at the house of a gang member. Dally also has a bad home life. Dally moves around and has lost contact with his father because, his father does not “give a hang whenever I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk”(83). Dally’s father does not care about his son's location or what he is doing. Dally’s father does not punish him for breaking the law. Dally is growing up with no one
Everyone worries about Johnny because he is fragile on the inside. Johnny is the “gang’s pet, everyone's kid brother”(12). The gang feels Johnny is the pet. A member of the gang is always with him and watches him because he is not as tough as the others and because of this, they always have a eye on him. Johnny cares about all members of the gang because if he did not have the gang he would run away. Dally is the opposite of Johnny. He is “ tougher than the rest of us, tougher, colder, meaner”(10). The gang does not have to worry about Dally because he is tough. The gang knows Dally can get himself out of any trouble he gets in. Dally is mean and has a cold heart and because of this he does not care about