Names
Cherry Valance
Soc who befriends Ponyboy, helps "spy" for the greasers, and likes sunsets
A Small Potted Plant
Mama's precious possession in Raisin. What might be its significance?
Brings terrible news about $6,500.
Bobo
"Just tell me, what is it you want to be -- and you'll be it . . . Whatever you want to be -- Yessir!"
Walter to Travis
Home
Answers will vary -- many possibilities.
Marilyn
Qian's cat, in whom Qian finds great comfort during many times of trouble. Ba Ba believes she is bad luck and releases Marilyn. What eventually happens with Marilyn?
A monkey
Former resident of the "Monkey Garden," once a magical place of childhood games for Esperanza and her friends, but now a place where Esperanza no longer belongs. (Why?)
Favorite game is "pop-the-whip"
Aunt Addie
" I see many scalp but no children scalp in our village. My father says man are cowards who fight children."
True Son to Reverend Elder (though Uncle Wilse is an acceptable answer too)
Jim Crow
Harry Butler
True Son's birth father
"Nature's first green is gold/Her hardest hue* to hold." (*hue = color)
From Robert Frost's poem in The Outsiders. (Answers will vary.)
Sweet and very bubbly, just like his name.
Sodapop
"He started at me for a second, then grinned. 'You little sonofagun,' he said in a relieved voice. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just went on picking up the glass from the bottle end and put it in a trash can. I didn't want anyone to get a flat tire."
After threatening the Socs with a broken bottle and saying that you can't get hurt if you're tough, Ponyboy demonstrates that -- even after the deaths of Johnny and Dally -- he is still the same kind and compassionate person he has always been. (Two-Bit speaks the line, but this is less important than his "relieved voice.")
The New Neighbors Welcoming Committee
Linder's organization in Raisin. Answers will vary, but the ironic title is key.
Uncle Hoskins
Scares Richard by saying he will drag his wagon deep into the water.
Is murdered by whites in order to take control of his prosperous business. His family can't talk about him afterward or hold a funeral.
An badly injured right hand and wrist
Qian falls during recess at school and hides her injury from Ba Ba and especially from Ma Ma, who is in the hospital. Why is this significant?
Leads True Son back to his white family
Del Hardy
"And then Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at."
From The House on Mango Street, Rafaela is one of many examples of women who are subjected to toxic masculinity: men who sexually harass girls on the street or who believe that they have a right to control the lives of their wives, girlfriends, or daughters.
Mei Guo
Ba Ba's vision of the United States as a "Beautiful country." (Why?)
The Three Sisters
Lucy and Rachel's aunts who predict a bright future for Esperanza and who tell her that she "must remember to come back for the others."
An angel
What Richard's grandmother thinks that Richard actually saw
A "smart cookie" who knows how to sing opera and how to fix a TV. She says she "could've been somebody."
Esperanza's mother.
"You can't eat a dead dog, can you?"
Richard's mother to Richard
Tuff
In the language of the greasers, it is different from "tough," which means -- well -- "tough" or "rough." "Tuff" means "cool."