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Ponyboy got jumped by the Socs.
This was the very begining of the story and it showed us the conflict between two groups - the Socs and the Greasers. The reason why Ponyboy got jumped was Socs always picked on Greasers only because of Greasers’ poverty and negative behaviors. That stereotype was deeply injected into these people’s mind. -
The Soc searched for Ponyboy and Johnny and entered their territory. Johnny killed Bob in order to protect Ponyboy.
2)They tortured Ponyboy because of their hatred, and Johnny killed Bob for defense. -
The Greaser Gang met two Socs giris and had to let the girls go.
1)The Greasers were thought to be ones who broke the rules, and Dally didn’t pay for the ticket and his rebellion.
Two Socs girls disagreed on something with their boyfriends, so they watched the movie by themselves. When Dally flirted Cherry, Ponyboy stopped him. We can tell that in these two groups, there are still those who don’t hate the opposite gang.
When they walked out, the Socs interrupted their conversation by stopping by, and threatened them to let Cherry go. -
Darry blamed Ponyboy for being late and hit him.
The relationship between Darry and Ponyboy broke out, and Ponyboy thought Darry didn’t like him and he thought himself wouldn't care about his big brother. The reason why it was important is Ponyboy’s leaving was the initial cause of what happened after. -
The Soc searched for Ponyboy and Johnny and entered their territory. Johnny killed Bob in order to protect Ponyboy.
1)This plot has to the climax of the whole story, because the weak Johnny did something no one could imagine. That would cause the baddest result of the stereotype between Greasers and Socs. The Socs seemed like competitive and ambitious, especially if this issue was related to their girlfriends. They made Ponyboy drown in the water, and as a friend, Johnny fought back with his knife. No one could say who is right or wrong, because the stereotype caused the gap between two groups. -
The Greaser Gang met two Socs giris and had to let the girls go.
2)From this event, we can learn that in their mind, the Socs wasn’t supposed to do anything with Greasers, even stay close to each other. -
Ponyboy and Johnny went to the church for safety.
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Johnny and Ponyboy had their hair cut.
Their long hair was the symbol of the Greasers, but when they cut them off, they felt like being apart from their gang. While the Socs were short hairs, they felt more uncomfortable about that. And hair has been something Ponyboy was proud of. Cutting them was like erasing his identity. -
Ponyboy, Johnny and Dally came into the fire and helped many children out.
When Ponyboy told the teacher he was a Greaser, the teacher did’t know what he was talking about. Instead, the teacher was really thankful about their helps. Everyone had their pureness in their hearts and the willingness to help theirs, but the Socs judged the Greasers by their stereotype, and based on that fact, the Greasers tended to worser and worser. The fights gradually became more and more common and normal. -
The currently final fight was on.
1)The Greasers won the fight. It seemed to be a necessary fight which can show the status but it also seemed to be a meaningless fight, because from Randy, Ponyboy and Johnny’s perspective, fighting couldn’t change anything. Although they won the ramble and felt the happiness and excitement, soon they would find that stereotype still happened. -
Dally couldn’t bear the fact that Johnny was dead, and his madness drove him to rob the grocery store.
In stereotype’s mind, the Greaser often did crimes and broke laws now and then. They were thought to be cold blood and didn’t care anyone, but actually they didn’t discover the reason why they lost their control. They were humans and had the exact feeling as the Socs felt. They would get hurt by losing their relatives or friends. That’s also one of the biggest misunderstanding of the stereotype. -
Randy talked with Ponyboy for a while.
When the real big fight was about to happen, Randy went to talk with Pony, informed him about it and claimed that he didn’t want to be in the fight. We can tell that only those small amount people who didn’t support any group had no power to change the current situation, and all they had to do was to watch all these happened. In Ponyboy’s mind, Randy was not a Socs; he was a friend. -
Johnny died.
After the big fight, Ponyboy and Dally went to the hospital to visit Johnny and told him the winning news. To their surprise, Johnny insisted that fighting was uesless, and he wanted Ponyboy to stay gold. He didn’t want that stereotype mind affected Ponyboy’s attitude and pureness. -
Cherry and Ponyboy chatted about the sunset.
They enjoyed the scenery of sunset together, and they chatted about the same sunset looking from south or east part of the town. The stereotype might differ from person to person, but the natural scenes were the same no matter group or location you were at. Sunset might be the symbol of happiness, and they wanted their groups to be as nice as the sunet that brought to them. -
The currently final fight was on.
2)People still thought the Socs were more classic than the Greasers. -
Ponyboy asked Sodapop whether he sceamed out Darry in his dream.
Another storyline can be followed by the brothership between Ponyboy and Darry. At first, Darry chose to decide he didn't care Darry and Darry didn't care about him. Now after their conflicts, he realised he cared about Darry so much. After his woke-up, he didn't want who he called in his dream to affect anyone's feeling, especially Darry. They cared each other too much and accumulated misunderstanding leaded them to the opposite road. -
The Judge judged Ponyboy innocent.
That main reason was that the doctor who Johnny left a letter to proved the killer was not Ponyboy. We think another reason was that a few Socs also proved Ponyboy's innocent, like Cherry and Randy. They were kind of Ponyboy's friends and wanted to help him regardless of the stereotype. -
He wrote down his stories, and wanted to share it to others.
After he found the letter fold in the book, Johnny also wanted to change Dally, and didn’t want Dally to do extreme things. Johnny wanted to show Dally the sameness between the Greasers and Socs through the same spots of sunrise and sunset.
The reason why Ponyboy wanted to wrote it down was that he wanted to show there was still kindness in this society and wanted to use his writing to memorize two of his good buddies. -
Ponyboy, Sodapop and Darry had a real talk.
They had been through so much and conflicts and misunderstanding would be solved altogether ths time. Sodapop spoke out his real thought and hope to enhance the relationship between Darry and Pony. These three brothers started to change their perspective for others. The brothership had develped gradually in this story, from pretending not to care, to care too much to the extreme point, to understand each other.
