Summary: Chapter 1

Ponyboy Curtis, the narrator, begins the novel with a story: he is walking home one
afternoon after watching a Paul Newman film, and his mind starts to wander. He thinks
about how he wants Paul Newman’s good looks, though he likes his own greaser look. He
also thinks that, although he likes to watch movies alone, he wishes he had company for the
walk home.
Ponyboy steps back from his story to explain that walking alone is unsafe for greasers, the
East Side gang of friends to which he belongs. When they walk by themselves, greasers
attract the harassment of Socials, or Socs, the rich West Side crowd. Ponyboy says that
greasers are poorer and wilder than the Socs, whom the newspapers condemn one day for
throwing parties and praise the next day for good citizenship. Greasers wear their hair long
and put grease in it. They dress tough, steal, and get into gang fights. They often carry
switchblades, mainly to help them stand their ground against the Socs.

Ponyboy says he does not participate in typical greaser mischief because his oldest
brother, Darrel (known as “Darry”), would kill him if he got into trouble. Ponyboy’s
parents died in a car crash, so the three Curtis brothers live together by themselves, an
arrangement possible only as long as they stay out of trouble. Twenty-year-old Darry acts
as head of the family. He is strict with Ponyboy and often yells at him. Despite his
intelligence, Ponyboy lacks common sense, which frustrates Darry. Ponyboy feels great
affection for his sixteen-year-old brother, Sodapop, whose charm and cheerfulness he
admires.
Ponyboy returns to the story of his solitary walk after the movies. As he walks, he notices a
red Corvair trailing him. He quickens his pace as he remembers how badly the Socs beat
his friend Johnny Cade. The Corvair pulls up beside Ponyboy and five Socs climb out and
surround him. One of them asks, “Need a haircut, greaser?” and pulls out a blade. The Socs
begin to beat up Ponyboy, who screams for help. Ponyboy’s brothers and the rest of their
group appear on the scene and chase away the Socs. Darry starts to scold Ponyboy for
walking home alone instead of calling for a ride, but Sodapop tells him to stop nagging.

The brothers and the other greasers make plans for the following night. Ponyboy decides
that he and Johnny will go to a double feature at the drive-in with their friend Dally. Dally
begins to talk about his ex-girlfriend, Sylvia, and Ponyboy thinks about the girls that
socialize with the greasers. He wonders what it would be like to spend time with an upper-
class Soc girl.

At home, Ponyboy, who loves to read, reads Great Expectations and thinks about how his
life resembles the life of Pip, the main character in Great Expectations. Still shaken by his
fight with the Socs, Ponyboy climbs into bed with Sodapop. The brothers talk about
Sodapop’s girlfriend, Sandy, whom Sodapop hopes to marry one day.

Summary: Chapter 2

The next night, Ponyboy and Johnny go with Dally to a double feature at the drive-in movie
theater. They sit behind a pair of Soc girls, and Dally begins to talk dirty in an attempt to
embarrass the girls. The girl with red hair turns around and coolly tells him to stop, but
Dally continues to make suggestive remarks. He goes to buy Cokes, and Ponyboy talks to
the red-haired girl, Cherry Valance. They talk about the rodeo and about Sodapop, whom
Cherry describes as a “doll.” She asks what became of Sodapop, and although the
admission embarrasses him, Ponyboy says that Sodapop dropped out of school to work in a
gas station. Dally comes back and offers a Coke to Cherry, but she throws it in his face.
Dally tries to put his arm around her. When he will not listen to Cherry’s protests, the
usually quiet Johnny stuns Dally by telling him not to bother the girls.

Dally stalks off, and Cherry and her friend Marcia invite Ponyboy and Johnny to watch the
movie with them. Two-Bit, one of Ponyboy’s friends, comes to announce that Dally has
slashed Tim Shepard’s tires and is going to have to fight him. Tim Shepard is the leader of
another greaser gang. Two-Bit explains the greasers’ two main rules: always stick together
and never get caught.
Cherry and Ponyboy go to get popcorn, and Ponyboy tells her about the time the Socs beat
up Johnny. The leader of the gang that beat him, Ponyboy says, wore a fistful of rings.
Cherry looks distressed and assures him that not all Socs are violent like the Socs that beat
Johnny. She also tells him that Socs have problems just as the greasers do, but Ponyboy
does not believe her.

Summary: Chapter 3

Ponyboy, Two-Bit, and Johnny walk to Two-Bit’s house with Cherry and Marcia so that

they can give the girls a ride home. As they walk, Ponyboy and Cherry talk about
Ponyboy’s brothers. He notices how easy it is to talk to Cherry. When Cherry asks Ponyboy
to describe Darry, he says Darry does not like him and probably wishes he could put
Ponyboy in a home somewhere. Johnny and Two-Bit are startled to hear that Ponyboy feels
this way, and Johnny says he always thought the three brothers got along well.
After Ponyboy tells Cherry about Sodapop’s old horse, Mickey Mouse, the two move on to
discuss the differences they perceive between Socs and greasers. During this discussion,
Ponyboy and Cherry find they have a surprising amount in common—for instance, they
both like reading and watching sunsets. Ponyboy voices his frustration that the greasers
have terrible luck while the Socs lead comfortable lives and jump the greasers out of sheer
boredom. Cherry retorts that the Socs’ situations are not as simple as Ponyboy thinks. They
decide that the main difference between Socs and greasers is that Socs are too cool and
aloof to acknowledge their emotions and that they live their lives trying to fill up their
emotional void, while the greasers feel everything too intensely. Ponyboy realizes that,
although they come from different classes, he and Cherry watch the same sunset.

A blue Mustang cruises by the group. The Mustang belongs to Bob and Randy, Cherry’s
and Marcia’s Soc boyfriends. The Mustang pulls up beside the group, and Randy and Bob
get out. Ponyboy notices that Bob wears three heavy rings on his hand. The greasers and
Socs nearly get into a fight, but the girls agree to leave with their boyfriends to prevent
violence. Before leaving, Cherry tells Ponyboy that she hopes she won’t see Dally again,
because she thinks she could fall in love with him.

Ponyboy walks home and finds Darry furious with him for staying out so late. In the
ensuing argument, Darry slaps Ponyboy. No one in Ponyboy’s family has ever hit him
before, and Ponyboy storms out of the house in a rage. He feels sure now that Darry does
not want him around. It is after two o’clock in the morning. Ponyboy finds Johnny in the lot
where the greasers hang out, and he tells Johnny that they are running away. Johnny, who
lives with his abusive alcoholic father, agrees to run away without hesitating. The boys
decide to walk through the park and determine whether they really want to leave.

Summary: Chapter 4
The park is deserted at 2:30 in the morning. Ponyboy and Johnny go walking beside the
fountain. It is cold out, and Ponyboy is wearing only a short-sleeved shirt. Suddenly the
boys see the blue Mustang from earlier that night. Five Socs, including Randy and Bob,
jump out of the car and approach them. Presumably, the Socs have come to get even with
the boys for picking up their girlfriends. Ponyboy can tell they are drunk. Bob tells
Ponyboy that greasers are white trash with long hair, and Ponyboy retorts that Socs are
nothing but white trash with Mustangs and madras shirts. In a rage, Ponyboy spits at the
Socs. A Soc grabs Ponyboy and holds his head under the frigid water of the fountain.
Ponyboy feels himself drowning and blacks out. When he regains consciousness, the Socs
have run away. He is lying on the pavement next to Johnny. Bob’s bloody corpse is nearby.
Johnny says, “I killed him,” and Ponyboy sees Johnny’s switchblade, dark to the hilt with
blood.

Ponyboy panics, but Johnny remains calm. They decide to go to Dally, thinking he might
be able to help them. They find Dally at the house of Buck Merril, his rodeo partner. He
manages to get the boys fifty dollars, a change of clothing for Ponyboy, and a loaded gun.
He instructs them to take a train to Windrixville, where they can hide in an abandoned
church. Ponyboy and Johnny get on a train, and Ponyboy goes to sleep. When they get to
Windrixville, they hop off the train and find the church, where they collapse into exhausted
sleep.

Summary: Chapter 5

The next morning, Ponyboy wakes in the church and finds a note from Johnny saying that
he has gone into town to get supplies. When Johnny returns, he brings a week’s supply of
baloney and cigarettes, and a paperback copy of Gone with the Wind, which he wants
Ponyboy to read to him. Ponyboy makes a wisecrack and Johnny tells him he is becoming
more like Two-Bit every day. Johnny insists that they cut their hair to disguise themselves,
and he bleaches Ponyboy’s hair.

For the next week, the boys hide out at the church, reading Gone with the Wind, smoking,
and eating sandwiches. The boys admire the southern gentlemen in Gone with the
Wind, and Johnny points out that they remind him of Dally. Ponyboy disagrees. He prefers
the other greasers to Dally. Most of the greasers remind Ponyboy of the heroes in novels,
but Dally is so real he is frightening. Later, Ponyboy recites a Robert Frost poem, “Nothing
Gold Can Stay.” Johnny is moved by the poem.

After about five days, Dally shows up at the church with a letter to Ponyboy from Sodapop.
Dally says the police approached him about Bob’s murder and he told them that the
perpetrators fled to Texas. He takes Johnny and Ponyboy to the Dairy Queen and tells them
that a state of open warfare exists between the greasers and the Socs, who are furious about
Bob’s death. He also lets slip that Cherry Valance, feeling responsible for the murderous
encounter, has been acting as a spy for the greasers. He adds that in a day’s time the two
groups will meet for a rumble.

Summary: Chapter 6
Johnny shocks Dally by telling him he wants to go back home and confess to his crime.
Dally tries to change Johnny’s mind, telling him he never wants to see Johnny hardened the
way prison would harden him. Johnny is adamant and points out that his own parents
would not care what happens to him, but Ponyboy’s brothers care about him and want to
see him. Swearing under his breath, Dally begins to drive Johnny and Ponyboy home. As
they drive past the church where Ponyboy and Johnny have been staying, they see that it is
on fire. Ponyboy thinks he and Johnny must have started the fire with a cigarette butt, so
the boys jump out of the car to examine the blaze.

At the church, they find a group of schoolchildren on a picnic. Suddenly, one of the adult
chaperones cries out that some of the children are missing, and Ponyboy hears screaming
from inside the church. Acting on instinct, he and Johnny climb into the burning building
through a window. At the back of the church, they find the children huddled together and
terrified. As he runs through the smoky inferno, Ponyboy wonders why he is not scared. He
and Johnny lift the children out of the window. Dally appears and yells that the roof is
about to cave in. As they lift the last child out the window, the roof crumbles. Johnny
pushes Ponyboy out of the window, and then Ponyboy hears Johnny scream. Ponyboy starts
to go back in for Johnny, but Dally clubs him across the back and knocks him out.

When Ponyboy wakes, he is in an ambulance, accompanied by one of the schoolteachers,

Jerry Wood. The teacher tells him that his back caught on fire and that the jacket he was
wearing, which Dally lent him, saved his life. He says that Dally was burned but will
probably be fine. Johnny, however, is in very bad shape—he was struck by a piece of
burning timber as it fell, and may have broken his back. The man jokingly asks Ponyboy if
he and Johnny are professional heroes. Ponyboy tells him that they are juvenile delinquents

Ponyboy has suffered mild burns. Jerry stays with him while he is in the hospital, and
Ponyboy confides the story of Bob’s death. Jerry agrees that Johnny killed Bob in self-
defense. He tells Ponyboy he shouldn’t smoke, something that no one has ever said to
Ponyboy before. Darry and Sodapop arrive. Sodapop hugs Ponyboy, and Darry cries,
shocking Ponyboy. The anger he has felt toward Darry dissolves. Ponyboy realizes that
Darry does care about him; Darry is strict because he loves Ponyboy and wants him to
succeed. Ponyboy runs across the room and embraces his brother, thinking that everything
will be fine once he gets home.

Summary: Chapter 7

The reporters and police interview Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry in the hospital waiting

room. Sodapop jokes with the reporters and hospital staff, keeping the mood light with his
antics. The doctors finally emerge and say that Dally will be fine but that Johnny’s back
was broken when the roof caved in. Even if Johnny survives, they add, he will be
permanently crippled.
The next morning, Ponyboy is making breakfast when Steve Randle (Sodapop’s best
friend) and Two-Bit come in with the morning papers. The papers portray Ponyboy,
Johnny, and Dally as heroes for rescuing the schoolchildren. They also mention Ponyboy’s
excellent performance on the track team and in school. The papers mention that the state
will charge Johnny with manslaughter and send both Ponyboy and Johnny to juvenile court,
from which Ponyboy might be sent to a boys’ home. The other boys reassure Ponyboy that
his family will stay together. Ponyboy tells them he had his recurring nightmare—which
first occurred on the night of his parents’ funeral—the previous night. He never remembers
the dream, but it makes him wake up in intense panic.

Ponyboy asks Sodapop about Sandy and learns that she got pregnant and moved to Florida.
Her parents refused to let her marry Sodapop because of his age, so Sandy left to live with
her grandmother. Sodapop and Darry go to work, and Two-Bit and Ponyboy go to get
Cokes at the Tasty Freeze. A blue Mustang pulls up to the restaurant, and in it they see the
group of Socs that jumped Ponyboy and Johnny in the park. Ponyboy feels an immediate
and intense hatred for them.

One of the Socs, Marcia’s boyfriend, Randy, comes over to Ponyboy. Two-Bit reminds him
that no fighting is allowed before the rumble, but Randy says he wants only to talk. He asks
Ponyboy why he saved those children and says he would never have thought a greaser
could do such a thing. Ponyboy says that it didn’t have anything to do with his being a
greaser. Sick about the violence and Bob’s death, Randy says he does not intend to fight at
the rumble. Randy explains that Bob was his best friend, a good guy with a terrible temper
and overly indulgent parents. Ponyboy feels reassured by his talk with Randy and realizes
that Socs can be human and vulnerable.

Summary: Chapter 8

Two-Bit and Ponyboy go to see Johnny and Dally in the hospital. Johnny, weak and pale,
whispers that he would like Ponyboy to finish reading Gone with the Wind to him. His
mother shows up to visit, but she is a mean-spirited, nagging woman and Johnny refuses to
see her. As Ponyboy and Two-Bit leave, she accosts them and blames them for Johnny’s
condition, and Two-Bit insults her.
Dally is recovering nicely in the hospital, and for the first time ever Ponyboy feels warmly
toward Dally. Dally says that Tim Shepard, the leader of another gang of greasers, came in
to talk about the rumble. Dally asks for Two-Bit’s black-handled switchblade, and Two-Bit
gladly hands over his prized possession without even asking why Dally needs it.

On the way home, Ponyboy and Two-Bit see Cherry Valance in her Corvette. She says that
the Socs have agreed to fight with no weapons. Ponyboy asks her to go see Johnny, but she
says she cannot because Johnny killed Bob. She says that Bob had a sweet side and was
only violent when drunk, as he was when he beat up Johnny. Ponyboy calls her a traitor,
but he quickly forgives her. He asks her if she can see the sunset on the West Side, and
when she says she can, he tells her to remember that he can see it on the East Side too.

Summary: Chapter 9
Feeling sick before the rumble, Ponyboy swallows five aspirin and struggles to eat his
dinner. The boys have bathed and made themselves look “tuff,” and leave for the rumble
excitedly. Ponyboy feels a sinking feeling when he sees the other greasers. Tim Shepard’s
gang and the others seem like genuine hoods. Twenty-two Socs arrive in four carloads to
fight the twenty greasers. Darry steps forward to start the fight, and Paul Holden, Darry’s
high school friend and football teammate, steps up to challenge him. As Paul and Darry
circle each other, Dally joins the group. As Dally arrives, the fight breaks out in full. After
a long struggle, the greasers win.
When the rumble ends, Dally and Ponyboy go to the hospital to see Johnny. A policeman
stops them, but Ponyboy feigns an injury, and the officer gives them an escort to the
hospital. Ponyboy and Dally find Johnny dying. Johnny moans that fighting is useless, tells
Ponyboy to “[s]tay gold,” and then dies. Dally is beside himself with grief and runs
frantically from the room.

Summary: Chapter 10
After Johnny’s death, Ponyboy wanders alone for hours until a man offers him a ride. The
man asks Ponyboy if he is okay and tells him that his head is bleeding. Ponyboy feels
vaguely disoriented. At home, he finds the greasers gathered in the living room and tells
them that Johnny is dead and that Dally has broken down. Dally calls and says he just
robbed a grocery store and is running from the police. The gang rushes out and sees police
officers chasing him. Dally pulls out the unloaded gun he carries, and the police shoot him.
Dally collapses to the ground, dead. Ponyboy muses that Dally wanted to die. Feeling dizzy
and overwhelmed, Ponyboy passes out.

When Ponyboy wakes, Darry is at his side. Ponyboy learns that he got a concussion when a
Soc kicked him in the head during the rumble, and that he has been delirious in bed for
three days.

Summary: Chapter 11
Ponyboy is restricted to bed rest for a week after he wakes up from his concussion. He finds
a picture of Bob the Soc in Sodapop’s high school yearbook. Bob’s grin reminds him of
Sodapop’s. Ponyboy wonders if Bob’s parents hate him, saying he prefers their hatred to
their pity. Looking at the photograph and remembering conversations with Cherry and
Randy, Ponyboy concludes that Bob was cocky, hot-tempered, frightened, and human.
Randy arrives at the house to talk to Ponyboy and behaves with shocking insensitivity. Not
thinking of what Ponyboy has suffered, Randy says he is worried about being associated
with the violence. They discuss the hearing scheduled for the next day. Ponyboy, in a
delirious state, says that he killed Bob himself and that Johnny is still alive. Darry asks
Randy to leave.

Summary: Chapter 12
Ponyboy does not have to speak much at the hearing, since his doctor has spoken to the
judge about Ponyboy’s condition. The judge asks Ponyboy a few gentle questions about his
home life and then acquits him of all wrongdoing and allows him to return home with his
brothers. After the hearing, Ponyboy becomes detached and depressed. His grades suffer,
he loses his coordination, memory, and appetite, and he resumes fighting with Darry.
Ponyboy’s English teacher, Mr. Syme, says that although Ponyboy is failing, he can raise
his grade to a C by writing an outstanding autobiographical theme.

The next day at lunch, Ponyboy goes to the grocery store with Steve and Two-Bit for candy
bars and Cokes. When a group of Socs accosts him, he threatens them with a broken bottle,
saying he refuses to take any more of their intimidation. Ponyboy’s uncharacteristic show
of hostility alarms Steve and Two-Bit, and they warn Ponyboy not to grow hard like Dally
was. They are relieved when Ponyboy bends down to pick up the broken glass, not wanting
anyone to get a flat tire.

That night as Ponyboy and Darry fight about Ponyboy’s grades, Sodapop runs out of the
house, upset that Sandy has returned a letter he wrote her unopened. Darry explains that
Sodapop is not the father of Sandy’s child and acts puzzled that Sodapop never told
Ponyboy. Ponyboy reflects that he probably acted uninterested when Sodapop tried to talk
about his problems. Worried, Darry and Ponyboy go find Sodapop. He tells them their
constant fighting is tearing him apart. Sobbing, he asks them to try to understand each other
and stop fighting. They promise to try. Ponyboy thinks that Sodapop will hold them
together.

The boys run back home. Ponyboy looks at Johnny’s copy of Gone with the Wind. He finds
a handwritten note from Johnny urging him to stay gold and saying that the children’s lives
were worth his own. Ponyboy realizes that he wants to tell the story of his friends so that
other hoodlums will not nurse their anger at the world and ignore the beauty in it. He begins
to work on his English theme, starting with the words that begin The Outsiders: “When I
stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two
things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.”