DALLAS WINSTON
Dallas Winston is an 18 year old boy, who is in a street gang that call themselves “Greasers.” His friends call him Dally; it just sounds tougher. Dally doesn’t have the courage to tell someone what he is really thinking. He has bleach blond hair, animal like teeth, and he doesn’t like hair grease or haircuts. Dally isn’t the kind of guy you would want to get mad. He teaches lessons to his friends, wither it’s on fighting or girls, but sometimes, it isn’t the kind of lesson they want to hear.
Dally is one of my favorite characters in the book The Outsiders because he has this sort of attitude to him, and how he shows himself. There is just something about him that makes this story complete. With ought him, the story would end up on the complete opposite side of the story line. Dally isn’t the type of person you can relate to, unless you think your all that and you hit on almost every girl you see! Kind of like when Dally meet a girl nick named Cheery! After her “date” with Ponyboy, she told him “I hope I never see Dallas Winston again, because if I do, I’d probably fall in love with him!”
When Ponyboy and Johnny needed help getting out of town to avoid the cops, Dally assisted them. He gave Pony a worm leather jacket, and Johnny a gun to protect themselves is in any danger. Before they left Dally told them about an old a banded church at the top of Jane Mountain, and how to survive there for a week. As he was thinking to himself, he said out loud, “Man, I thought New York was the only place where I would end up in a murder wrap!”
Dally is talked about, when not there, for example by Ponyboy at the old church, he couldn’t stop thinking about him. I can tell by the way he says “Dally has no more manners than I do.” I don’t know whether to see that as a compliment or as insult for Dally. Or how he says to Johnny how much Dally scares him. After about a week, Dally shows up at the church and comments on Pony and Johnny before they finally leave and head down to town and have some food from Dairy Queen! After they order their food, he tells them what is going on and what they missed.
When Johnny dies, Dally gets as angry as a tiger with a sore tooth, and rampages off to the local store and takes the anger out on some magazines. The store clerk tells him to pay for the things he has damaged. But all he gets is a gun to the face and the words “Give Me the money!” Sometime Dally just can’t keep all of that hidden emotion inside, so he just walks it off until the familiar sounds of the police. He finds the closes pay phone and calls home, warns them on what is coming down the road, and so he can have some backup! Just as the rest of the gang catches up, he is cornered by 3 cop cars, and shot under refusal.
After Dally was shot right in front of the rest of that gang, they realized how much he meant to them and what he all did to help them stay together. Most people wouldn’t care that much, because of the way he had treated people. But the Greasers are a family, and when you lose a family member, it takes a long time to sew up that open wound in your heart!
