The Author's Craft In The Outsiders, By S. E. Hinton

Author’s craft can be expressed as how the author builds the character throughout the story and what certain tool it used to make the character what it is. In The Outsiders, Darry is a dynamic character because throughout the story Darry’s personality and feelings towards Ponyboy change. Darry’s feelings towards Ponyboy go from making Ponyboy feel unwanted, to making Ponyboy feel loved and cared for. S.E. Hinton uses the author’s craft of physical characteristics, action or incident, and the reaction of others to build the character Darry.

The first tool used by the author is physical characteristics. S.E Hinton begins her book, The Outsider, by describing some of the most important characters in the book, one of them being Darry. It begins

In this case, it would be the reaction Ponyboy had to Darry’s actions. In the beginning, of the story it says, “ Darry’s always rough on me without meaning out to be.’’(Hinton 6). This shows how Darry by nature, has a harsh personality, but, at first, Ponyboy doesn’t show much reaction. Then, in the middle of the story, the reader can see how Ponyboy and Darry’s relationship changes. It changes because Ponyboy comes home that night, and Darry had had about enough of Ponyboy so Darry slaps Ponyboy across the face. At that moment, Ponyboys feels unwanted and disliked by Darry so he runs aways and says “ If Darry doesn't want me it’s cool, but I will never let him slap me ever again.’’ (50). Ponyboy also expresses how he feels about Darry when he says “It was my house as much as Darry’s, and if he wanted to pretend I wasn’t alive that is fine with me.’’ (52). That shows the reader how Ponyboy reacted to Darry’s action. In the end, Ponyboy realizes how much his brother really loves him. Ponyboy realizes this when Darry shows up to the hospital and starts crying when he sees Ponyboy 98. “Darry did care about me, maybe as much as he cared about Soda, and because he cared he was trying too hard to make something for me.” (98). At this point the reader realizes their true relationship for