Character Analysis Of Curtis In S. E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders'

In The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Darrel “Darry” Curtis appears cold-hearted, but he is not. First, after Ponyboy sleeps out in the lot and Darry slaps him, Ponyboy narrates, “Darry looked at the palm of his hand where it had turned red and then looked back at me. His eyes were huge” (50). The part that says “His eyes were huge” shows that Darry really didn’t mean to hit Ponyboy. Darry isn’t really cold-hearted and cruel, but he hit Ponyboy because he was worried about him and didn’t know what to do. He was scared to lose another person he loved, because he had lost his parents and didn’t want to lose Ponyboy. After hitting his little brother, Darry acts like he’s shocked at himself, like he’s a child that just realized what he did wrong. Next, in the hospital, after Ponyboy and Johnny saved the kids from the fire and Ponyboy and Darry are reunited, Ponyboy thinks, “Suddenly I realized, horrified, that Darry was crying.

I hadn’t seen him cry in years” (98). Again, this shows that Darry was worried about Ponyboy and scared to lose him, which shows that he is not heartless, but the exact opposite. “I hadn’t seen him cry in years” indicates that Darry has been hiding his feelings, which may make him appear uncaring even though he really loves and cares about Ponyboy. Finally, when Soda runs away after Darry and Ponyboy had a fight, Ponyboy thinks, “Darry looked real worried. I suddenly realized that Darry was only twenty, that he wasn’t so much older that he couldn’t feel scared or hurt and as lost as the rest of us” (176). Darry still feels the same emotions as Ponyboy and the rest of the greasers, and feeling scared, hurt, and lost makes him anything but