We know that Ponyboy Curtis is the most sensitive and intelligent member of the greaser gang in Susan E. Hinton's teen novel, The Outsiders. He loves movies, reading, sunsets and his brothers, Sodapop and Darry, as well as his best friend, Johnny Cade. He is also the narrator, and the final paragraph of the book repeats the first lines from the opening chapter, thus completing the cycle of the story and informing the reader that it is the beginning of the essay which he has been assigned to write for English.
I sat down and picked up my pen and thought for a minute. Remembering. Remembering a handsome, dark boy with a reckless grin and a hot temper. A tough, tow-headed boy with a cigarette in his mouth and a bitter grin on his hard face. Remembering--and this time it didn't hurt--a quiet, defeated-looking sixteen-year-old whose hair needed cutting badly and who had black eyes with a frightened expression to them. One week had taken all three of them. And I decided I could tell people, beginning with my English teacher. I wondered for a long time how to start that theme, how to start writing about something that was important to me. And I finally began like this: 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...
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