What is Family?

This is piece about the theme on the real meaning of family, and it shows that it doesn’t matter if you’re related or not.


After the Curtis’ brothers parents died you’d think that they had lost family, but instead they gained some. After Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry’s parents died, Darry had to drop out of school to help his brothers. By doing that had just gave away his whole reputation and all he worked for and was now a dirty, lousy greaser. Just like them, none of the other greasers had families, and if they did they weren’t good ones. So even though they might not be related by blood, they are all family.

Clearly some might think that not having parents would be the worst thing ever, but the greasers didn’t care. The gang was more family than lots of them ever had. Either their parents had died, or they had just not cared about them enough. There are people like Johnny that hate their parents, when Dally and Pony boy were visiting him as he was dying, Johnny wouldn’t even let his own mother in. If that was me, I wouldn’t have cared if I hated her or not, that was my mom who had raised me.

Even though Dally wouldn’t save the children from a burning church, when Johnny was in there, nothing else mattered. That just shows how close this gang was. Dally, the toughest, most conniving person you’d ever meet, risked his life to save the only person he ever loved, and that was his own gang member. Whether blood related or not greasers are family, and nothing will ever interfere that.