Dallas was hardened from a tough upbringing. He spent three years on the wild side of New York and was arrested at the young age of ten. Dallas was also treated poorly by his father which contributed to his toughness. The state of his mother is unknown. He says to Johnny at one point "My old man doesn't give a hang if I'm in jail dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don't bother me none."

He is cocky and intelligent, tall and lean. He wears his thick hair in a complicated arrangement of swirls. He is also tough—he once held off four opponents in a fight with a broken soda bottle. He sees Ponyboy as Sodapop's annoying kid brother and wishes Ponyboy would not tag along so often. He’s currently 17

Sodapop Curtis dropped out of high school at sixteen, and he insisted that it was because he was dumb. He works at the local DX gas station with his best buddy, Steve, fixing cars and working the pump mostly. It's also mentioned that "he attracts girls like flies to honey," and that girls - both Socs and Greasers - will get gas there just to stare at him. He’s currently 16

Darry is, in short, a mother and father for his younger brothers. He loves them dearly, though he has a bit of a weird way of showing it. Instead of being caring and understanding, he is stern and protective of them. However, this is only because he doesn't want to lose them to a boy's home. Additionally, he is a big impact on the brothers. Hes 20

Johnny is very quiet, not getting in the way of the gang very often. This is a result of constantly being neglected and verbally abused by his mother and beaten by his alcoholic father. He’s compared to a dog kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd. He’s 16.

Ponyboy is a fourteen-year old greaser who lives with his two older brothers, Sodapop and Darry on the lower-class east side of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His parents were killed in an automobile accident just eight months before The Outsiders takes place. Ponyboy, like Sodapop, is under Darry's legal custody and must stay out of trouble in order to remain with him.

Two-Bit is a wise-cracking, fun-loving, kind of crazy guy. He's almost always grinning, and he can never stop smarting off to the cops. Ponyboy once states, "He really couldn't help it. Everything he said was so irresistibly funny, that he just had to let the police in on it to brighten up their dull lives" (which was how he put it to Ponyboy once). He gets drunk often, but it's kind of hard to tell when he is from when he's sober. Hes 20