Character Study -

Dallas "Dally" Winston

When I think about Dallas all I can think about is a friend I knew in middle school. A kid who hated his background and current life but knew no way to fix it so he went with it. Dally I think is the same.

He was nothing but a scared kid with a chip on his shoulder and a pain in his heart.

Yes he'd been in jail and had fought in rumbles but he was still scared. Just a scared kid hurt by simple things like his old man not caring. A kid who knew he couldn't change the world even if they would listen to a grease. A kid who lost his best friend who wasn't even a full year younger than him in a church that he had told him to hide in.

I think Dally blamed himself for a lot, if he had run in fast he could have gotten them both out, if he had done this or that it would have been him dying not Johnny. Not sweet innocent kicked puppy Johnny.

Dallas Winston is one of my favorite characters because even though we don't get to know a lot he's so deep and has so much room to look into.

I think Dally fought and cut up just to get attention he didn't get at home, even if that acting up put him in jail. If he was in jail he knew he had a bed and food and didn't have to buy or steal it. Didn't have to pay Buck for the room for those nights he was locked up. But I also believe on those nights he was in the cooler he hated it. The silence of the jail at night, those nights he knew he wouldn't be able to go check the lot to see if Johnny was sleeping out in the cold, the nights he'd pully Johnny up by his jacket collar and drag him to the Curtis's to sleep on the couch or even back to Buck's with him. Nights when all he had was his own thoughts to get lost in.

I believe on nights when he hadn't drunk himself to unconsciousness or been beaten to a pulp he cried himself to sleep. Cried about all kinds of things, from feeling weak, to thoughts of his mother and even tears about his fathers and why he never seemed to love him. Why he wasn't good enough for his old man.

Some days he'd sit in his room at Buck's and stay out of trouble and I think read. He didn't read like Pony, not fast and intelligent but slow and stumbly. Reading so he didn't have to think about the socs and the greasers or even the Shephard's gang. I like to think he'd read books like the Newsies. Things that took place in New York where he's from, things about the underdog actually changing the world. Things to make him feel not so helpless.

Some days he folds his jacket collar down and wears nice jeans and goes to the drive in. And pays up front, just like a normal kid. Pays for his movie and concessions, controlling how he speaks with some difficulty but manages to keep away from most slang. Doesn't harrass anyone just sits and watches the movie. Pretending that he's normal, pretending that he ain't just some grease scumbag. Though those days are cut short when another grease walks up and starts talking to him, teasing, then he pulls his collar back up and wipes his hands on his jeans to dirty them up, dropping his attempt at proper speech and goes back to slang and threats.

Some days he'd pull Johnny along, they'd go to the drive in or to the local stores and just hang around like normal kids. Talking and laughing not pick pocketing and thieving.

I'm almost positive he's knocked Johnny's dad's teeth in and had Johnny stay with him or Pony till his dad calmed down. Telling Johnny he'd do it everyday if he wanted though he knew if he did it long enough he'd get put back in the cooler.

But as he pulled Johnny from that church all he could think about was how he failed. Failed the first person he considered family. What hurt him the most though was truly when Johnny died. He knew now that they're would be no more days of taking Johnny and pretending to be normal kids not just greases. No more days of dragging him and Pony down to the movies just to cause trouble. No more times of pulling Johnny out the lot and giving him a place to stay. No more nothing with Johnny.

So as he stood in that park under that street lamp after robbing the store I believe his thoughts were jumbled and in that moment he cried and screamed because he truly was nothing but a scared kid committing Suicide but Cop. He knew he was going to die, he knew he was going to join Johnny so Johnny was no longer in his mind. He could think of him when he meet him in the afterlife.

I believe his thoughts were of his father maybe finally giving to shits now that he's dead. Thinking that even though he knew he couldn't before now there isn't even a hypothetical chance of changing the world. They're were no more books for him to read, no more worlds for him to escape for he was dying and you can't stop death. And as he cried out Pony's name as life left him I completely believe his last thought was about Ponyboy. Ponyboy could be sent to a boys home, Pony also just lost his best friend in the entire world and was now alone. He didn't have Johnny or Dally, he'd lost two best friends in one night so his name on his lips as he died was his apology.

His apology for leaving, his apology for failing to save Johnny and his apology for the life he had lived and the sad pathetic legacy he had left his friends.

I believe Dally Winston was nothing but a scared kid who dreamed of a better world and wanted so much more than his life on the wrong side of the tracks. He wanted love, life, freedom and the change to change the world.