Hello everyone.
For the past 7 weeks in English we have been reading this book called “The Outsiders.” This story had many different characters. The main character of this story is this person called “Ponyboy.” The story is about different sides. One side is rich while the other is poor. In this book the poor people are called greasers because they have greasy hair and don’t shower. For the rich they are called “Socs” because they are in the rich class. Sometimes they like to beat up greasers if they are alone. For today’s task. Our task is to develop a response to the questions of the book.
Here are the questions and my response to each of one of them.
Questions:
Question 1: What circumstances “did Ponyboy’s teacher refer to? What circumstances does Ponyboy think his teacher is referring to?
Answer: On the last chapter of the book, Ponyboy talks to his teacher about his school work. But Ponyboy was shocked to hear about his grades for English. Usually in English classes he would get normal good grades. He was struggling in his school work because of his previous time that both of his brothers that have died. His task was to write a story. But he asked his teacher Mr. Syme how long does the pages have to be. The teacher thinks and says that it can be no less than 5 pages. Then Ponyboy asked the teacher if he could do 5 pages. The teacher was surprised and nicely told Ponyboy that would be great. Ponyboy was allowed to rewrite his story because the teacher had felt bad for him. He wants Ponyboy to create a good theme for his story.
I think this means that the teacher is saying that Ponyboy is really creative with his ideas and that Mr. Syme knows that he can develop to improve more into his themes. Because before that, Ponyboy had written a bad theme told by Mr. Syme. At the end, I think that the teacher decided to give Ponyboy another chance after what he has been through and the hard situation he has been through.
Question 2: Why doesn’t Ponyboy feel scared when the Socs approach him and he threatens them with a broken bottle? How is this dramatic change from the Ponyboy we have seen up until this point? Was there any anything odd about Pony’s behaviour?
Answer: I think the reason behind this was that after the hard times that Ponyboy has been through. I think he was just a little bit devastated after the pain he’s been feeling. The first pain he had was when Darry slapped him on his face. And the second time where he had felt pain was when Johnny had killed one of the Socs (Bob) and was afraid that he’s life was doomed. The third time he had felt pain was when they saved the church and how Johnny almost died from the fire. Lastly, the last time where he had felt pain was when Johnny and Dally were killed to death on the same today.
He did this because Greasers act tough and strong and pick up fights. But for Ponyboy, he wasn’t like the rest of the greasers. Ponyboy doesn’t really like to pick up fights and really scared of them. But after all his pain he decides to change because that’s what Greasers are. They are brave and pick up fights. Something odd was that when the socs decided to smash the bottles I don’t think that he really cared because of these reasons.
Question 3: What does Darry mean he says “you don’t just stop living because you lose someone?.”
Answer: I think that this quote Darry is trying to say is that life is hard. Sometimes life goes the opposite way then that the way you expected to be. This means that even thought one or two friends of yours died. You don’t give up life and to continue on with the pain. The reason why Darry told Ponyboy this was because so that he can understand how life really is. Life isn’t suppose to be easy. Sometimes, there are some hard times that you will have to stop. But instead of stopping we go on because life is difficult and is challenging.
Question 4: What does Ponyboy end up doing for his English assignment? Why the title of the book? Who is the biggest Outsider of them all and why?
Answer: At the end, Ponyboy decided to name his story the “Outsider” because of his times with the greasers and battle between both sides. The biggest outsider in Ponyboy’s opinion was Dally. I think that the reason why he choose Dally was because Dally has been there for him in his lowest point of his life. Dally tries to comfort Ponyboy that everything is going to be ok. At the end of the movie, Ponyboy was free and lived on with all his brothers and greasers happily living in peace.
Have a great day!