Comparing Ponyboy & Grey

Essay

Ponyboy and Greg are two very different people if you were to compare them to one another. Ponyboy has the loss of his parents with him and being left with his two older brothers, meanwhile Greg has had his parents with him all of his life. Ponyboy is used to having things be rough and having to do lots of things on his own. But Greg is used to having things be easy and having things being done for him, although he might think that entering middle school is hard, its nothing compared to what Ponyboy has gone through. If you were to think about it, they have a lot of differences and similarities.

                Trying to fit in is hard, it is also one of the things they have in common. Both of the boys are trying to fit in, Ponyboy in his gang as the youngest member, and Greg being in the youngest grade of middle school. Ponyboy is the youngest in the gang, with his two older brothers, Darry and Sodapop, being one of the main people involved in the gang. Ponyboy is considered the tagalong by Steve just because he’s the youngest out of everyone in the gang. But even with Steve thinking that, Ponyboy doesn’t give up trying to fit in. He dresses like a greaser, acts like a greaser, and he thinks of himself as a greaser. Greg is trying to fit in at middle school because it’s his first year, the problem is that he’s trying too hard to fit in, he never realized all he had to do was be himself. So instead he joined every club in school so he could show up in the yearbook and be popular. Both of them did everything they could do to fit in.

Thought they have that similarity they happen to have a big diffrence too.  Ponyboy ended up having to grow up without a mom or dad, all he had was his brothers to watch out for him. He had lost his parents as a young boy, and all he had was his brothers and the gang . But on the other hand Gregory had his parents with him ever since he had been born and had never had to do anything without their help. Lots of things can change inside a person depending on wether or not they have parents with them. Ponyboy has his gang and his brother, but if he had his parents I almost guarantee he wouldn’t be in a gang. Greg isnt in a gang because he has parents that are still alive and take care of him and love him. The point is that theres a big diffrence between them just because one has parents and the other one doesn’t.

                Something else id have to say they do have in common is their brothers and their point of view on them. Both boys have older brothers, and both hate them. Ponyboy dislikes his brother because from hi spoint of view he thinks Darry, his oldest older brother, hates him. He thinks this because hes always saying things to Ponyboy about how he never uses his head and how he never thinks when it comes to doing the right thing, what Ponyboy doesn’t know is that Darry is just looking out for him, the entire gang knows that, except Ponyboy. But Gregory has an older brother that he dislikes because their have a normal brother-brother realtionship you see now a days. The oldest play prank on the younger one and gets him into trouble and then the youngest gets revenge. The diffrence between these two brother-brother realtionships is that Gregory and Fredrich is that they fight because they like picking  on eachother and think that they hate eachother, and Ponyboy and Darry don’t get along because Darry is always being mean to Ponyboy because hes looking out for him. Both realtionships may look the same but if you look closely and know more, theyre completely different.

                Friendship should be one of the most important things you treasure, and for one of the boys it is, for the other boy… not so much. Ponyboy has his gang as friends, their so close he could say there even brothers to him. They always stick up for eachother and stay together, wich is what makes them better than their rivals. But if you look at how Greg treated his “best friend” its nothing like how the gang is. Greg knew that it was him who did what Rowley was accused of and he didn’t say anything, he followed the lie, he didn’t seem to matter that it was his fault Rowley ended up having a broken arm, he even made fun of how he dressed and acted and that’s not what a best friend is supposed to be like. Ponyboy and the gang makes a perfect example of what true frienship is. They stick together and always hav eachother to go to when theres trouble or problems, their not single people formed up, their like one big family. That’s what friendship really is, and that’s what Greg didn’t do with Rowley.

                Although both boys have many similarities, similaroties that anyone would be able to name on the spot, everyones different and nobody’s perfect. Both boys have people in their lives that are important to them and both have moments where they don’t know what to do or what to think. They have diffrences, of course, because one may have more than the other but that shouldn’t mean that they have more luck or fortune, it just means that the one that has less has to find a way to live with what they have and appreciate it. Greg is entering middle school and is gonna learn more than schoolwork. Hes going to learn about friendhsip, and growing. Ponyboy is going to learn about growing up and letting go of childhood like everyone once has to. Even though they both have different past and are going to have different futures they will always be learning more with every mistake they make.

Dawn Marie Article

Your Honour,

             Dawn-Marie was my daughter, I was her mother, but that all ended a few years ago. My daughter committed suicide because she was getting bullied. The last time I saw her, alive, was on November 10, 2000. She had a very short life, had only lived 14 years before she ended it. We lived in mission, B.C. without any problems for years because before any of this, they were great friends; they had spent every Halloween together, had sleepovers. The girl who, mainly, bullied my daughter was one of her best friends. Then the rumours started and so did the problems...

            The problems made a huge difference in our life, my life, everyone who knew her and loved her. None of us expected her to act so harshly about the situation. That she was suffering that much, enough to kill herself. It kills me knowing that I could have done something about it and that if I would have she would still be alive, in our house with our family. I would have done everything I could have done to make the bullying stop, to make her feel safe and not have her worry about getting beat up. Sometimes I even blame myself for her dying sometimes, but I know that is not what she would have wanted me to think. She would want me to think that she did this for her own sake. The pain is undescribable; it’s like losing part of yourself, because she was my daughter, she was part of my life, and I would have rather died than her. There were so many mother-daughter activities we never got to do, so many things she will never experience. A lot of things I wish we could have done, but now there’s no way it’s going to happen. We all know she’s gone forever, permanently, that she’s never coming back and that’s the worst part of it all.

           There are a lot of punishments that are deserved for what happened. The girls bullied my daughter enough for her to kill herself, and that definitely does deserve punishment. It’s not their fault my daughter killed herself, because it may not be entirely. Of course it is some of their fault, so I think that they should get a punishment that teaches them that death is not easy, and that it is changing. I’m not saying that we should kill someone in their life, but teach them, talk to them, about what it’s like having to go through loosing someone that meant so much to many people. It would be life-changing for them to know how much would be changed, how much pain there would be with loosing that one person. I want them to know what I’m going through, what they caused, what they shouldn’t have done. They should know the things they did that seemed so little to them, could mean so much to someone else. So much that they would do something life-threating. So that they will all think before they bully someone again, so they won’t do it again.

          My life will never be the same, ever again. My daughter was part of my universe, and now she’s gone. She chose to solve her problems without thinking about what anyone would be do or feel. I am glad she solved her issues, but I still wish she could have solved it without killing herself. Our lives will never be the same because she’ll never graduate high school, get married, or have children. I don’t blame anyone for her committing suicide, but I blame people for what they did to her. I blame myself for not doing more about the issue, not helping her go through it and then just watching her end her life right in front of me. I’ll always remember her coming home, without any problems, laughing and talking about her days. All 14 years of her life will always be in my mind, in my heart.