Living up to his name, the bubbly Sodapop is the
"happy-go-lucky" middle brother of the Curtis family in S. E. Hinton's The
Outsiders. Pony claims that Soda is different from just about everybody he
knows. He never yells at Pony, like Darry, and "he understands everything, almost."
"Movie-star kind of handsome," Soda has long, light brown hair and brown eyes--"Dad's
eyes"--that can be "gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next."
Soda is one of the few greasers who never touches a drop of alcohol, since "He gets
drunk on just plain living."
Pony says Soda will "never
grow up," but Soda still hopes to marry his girlfriend, Sandy. He is broken-hearted when
she moves to Florida (apparently because she has become pregnant by someone else) and
refuses to answer his letters. Soda serves as the mediary between Darry's and Pony's
constant arguments, and Pony discovers late in the novel that their constant fighting
has affected Soda, too. He always takes Pony's side, but he loves Darry equally, rubbing
his older brother's aching muscles after a hard day at work. He tries to boost Pony's
ego, telling him that Darry's
"really proud of you 'cause you're so brainy.
It's just because you're the baby...
Savvy?"
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