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‘The Outsiders’ gives me a strong sense of loyalty which I find impressive. The characters in the book value loyalty as a general principle of pride and honor regardless of the social class they are in. The concept of pride in one’s kind serves as a significant part among the greasers. They stand up for each other no matter how wrong things can get.
In Ponyboy’s view, the existence of loyalty is what holds everyone in his gang together. Everybody is loyal to one another because they have grown up and gone through hardship together. No one in the gang lets one another fight alone. They always fight together and win together and there are times they fall, they fall together.
Loyalty is especially evident when the gang members selfless choices in the hope of making life better for the next generation. For instance, Dallas Winston, who is perceived as heartless and violent, never hesitates to help his friends and strangers out of sheer generosity and compassion. Every act of self-sacrifice by the gang members shows that the greasers have a strong moral code they live by. Despite the impression of typical violent, uncultured young criminals they give which is undeniable to an extent, the greasers are aware of the sense of morality and only want to create a better community.
Out of all the characters in the book, I especially find myself identifying with Dallas Winston the most. It is odd how deceiving looks can be and affect how a person is perceived, both positively and negatively. Like Dally’s cold and hard exterior, people tend to perceive me as cynical and distant, which leads to them making a bold assumption about me being incapable of empathy and completely void of all emotions humans can feel. Surely, I cannot blame them for thinking such things about me but I also find it rather unfair. Sometimes, I just do not seem to know how to show that I do care despite how tough I look on the outside, just like how Dallas cares for everyone in his way.
Dallas is seen as the toughest, and most dangerous by the rest of the gang. However, he has a soft side to him and a breaking point, just like everyone does. He begins to break when he knows he is losing Johnny Cade, the weakest one who sees him as a grand inspiration and seems to hold him in high regard. If we look put aside his hard exterior for once and try to see what lies beneath it, he is more than just a violent, cold-blooded criminal. When the church is on fire, he is not even interested in saving the kids’ lives in the slightest but risks his own to save Johnny without hesitation. It is as if values Johnny’s life so much more than his own that he becomes broken after Johnny’s death and supposedly goes on a suicide mission, lost and desperate.
As Dallas tries to pull off the suicide mission, he knows what will happen after all this. He dies and it is exactly just what he wants. He is haunted by guilt which plays a role in making him seek an end to his life. He might have figured that if only he had come to Johnny’s rescue from the beginning, in the park, things would not have been the way they are now. Johnny would not have killed Bob. Both Ponyboy and him would not have to run out of town. Johnny would not have been fatally injured in the church fire and most importantly, he would not have to die. It is more than clear that he is tremendously loyal to his duty of protecting Johnny no matter the odds.
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