The+outsiders+cj15

The Life of Dallas Winston

Bang, the last sound Dally heard, seems like a fitting end for a kid who had spent his child hood on the “wild side” of New York City. However we cannot sum up the life of Dallas Winston with some onomatopoeia and an explanation of where he spent his child hood, to know his life we need to dig a little deeper. Dallas "Dally" Winston is a character in the book The Outsiders by S.E.Hinton, and he is a greaser in Ponyboys' Gang. I picked Dally because I think he has a very interesting past, being that he spent his childhood on the "wild side" of New York. Another reason I chose him is because what is going on inside Dally is not easily noticed or understood by the reader.

Dally's aggressiveness, cunningness, and his recklessness are the traits that ultimately lead to the death.

Dally is aggressive, or In simple terms dally does not play well with others. Ponyboy said “one time in a dime store a guy told [Dally] to move over at the candy counter. Dally had turned around and belted him so hard it knocked a tooth loose”(Hinton, 24). Much the same as a child, he responds irrationally when someone tells him to do something he does not want to do, unfortunately dally doesn't just jump around and throw a fit. Another example of this behavior is at the end of the book where he was angry that Johnny died so he robbed a grocery store. To conclude this paragraph I will leave you with the main point of it, when things do not go Dallas Winston’s way he responds with violence

==== One glance at Dallas Winston and you would probably think any word connotating intelligence would not describe him, but now let’s take a closer look, he is actually cunning. When pony and Johnny said they needed his help because Johnny had killed a Soc, he said “well wait I’ll see what I can do about this mess”(Hinton, 60) as if it was a normal thing. This Cunningness is not very obvious in the book but it is there if you look hard enough. One of the times where his cunningness shows, is when he was able to tell ponyboy and Johnny a plan for them to run away as if he had planned the whole thing before he even knew that Johnny had killed a Soc. When I describe Dally as cunning I mean he is clever, sneaky, tricky, and sly; he is kind of like a living guide book on how to survive as a criminal. ====

The last trait to describe Dally is Reckless, this trait describe him not because he does not know his limits, but because he does not care about them. Dally said “you’d better wise up [Ponyboy]… you get tough like me and you don’t get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothing can touch you…”(Hinton, 147). What Dally said shows that he has put himself under the illusion that he is untouchable even though he is actually not. His recklessness showed at the movies with Ponyboy, Johnny, Cherry, and Marcia, where he was excessively rude and would not leave until Johnny asked him to and that was only because he and Johnny had a special relationship. This recklessness is caused by several different factors, the first is the experience of spending his childhood on the lawless slums of New York City, the second is his dad does not care about what dally is doing or where he is, and the last is he has been to jail so many times he is used to it and he believes that the only consequences for the crimes he commits will be spending some time in prison.

In conclusion these are the things that led up to the shooting of Dallas Winston. His aggressiveness and hate for the world exceeded his rationality and when the only glimmer of love inside that sea of hate, Johnny, died Dally’s hate completely overcame his rationality. The cunningness Dally possessed let him get away with a lot more stuff than he should have gotten away with. His third trait would not exist without the second trait His cunningness made him reckless because he was sure he could use it to get himself out of trouble. Now you know what was going on inside the head of Dallas Winston.