Ponyboy and his brother Darry have a complex and often conflict-laden relationship. As the oldest of the siblings, Darry struggles to financially and emotionally take care of his younger brothers, and Pony is too young throughout most of the novel to appreciate how difficult this responsibility is. Darry has no parenting experience—he's learning on the job, and he isn't perfect. Just before Pony takes off with Johnny, Darry hits him one evening when tensions mount:

He should never yell at Soda. Nobody should ever holler at my brother. I exploded. "You don't yell at him!" I shouted. Darry wheeled around and slapped me so hard that it knocked me against the door.

Suddenly it was deathly quiet. We had all frozen. Nobody in my family had ever hit me. Nobody. Soda was wide-eyed. Darry looked at the palm of his hand where it had turned red and then looked back at me. His eyes were huge. "Ponyboy..."

I turned and ran out the door and down the street as fast as I could. Darry screamed, "Pony, I didn't mean to!" but I was at the lot by then and pretended I couldn't hear. I was running away. It was plain to me that Darry didn't want me around. And I wouldn't stay if he did. He wasn't ever going to hit me again.

Later, Pony and Darry find an easier relationship after they suffer even more loss in their group of Greaser friends.

Soda and Pony have an easier relationship, in part because Soda just seems to get along with everyone. Pony relates this early in the novel:

His eyes are dark brown—lively, dancing, recklessly laughing eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next. He has Dad's eyes, but Soda is one of a kind. He can get drunk in a drag race or dancing without
ever getting near alcohol. In our neighborhood it's rare to find a kid who doesn't drink once in a while. But Soda never touches a drop—he doesn't need to. He gets drunk on just plain living. And he understands everybody.

Pony feels that Soda always has his back and that he could even be a Soc if he wanted. Soda has never cared for school and is content with blue collar work, although he pushes his intelligent younger brother to continue going to school because he realizes that Pony is smarter. Soda seems to live a problem-free life (Socs excepted) until near the end, when Pony learns that everyone, even Soda, carries heavy weights sometimes.

His two brothers have very different personalities, but Pony learns that he needs both to lean on in the absence of his parents.

Ponyboy has two older brothers: sixteen-year-old Soda and twenty-year-old Darry. He says that both are different from him. While he enjoys reading and going to the movies, they prefer more real pursuits. As Darry says, "life is enough without inspecting other people's."

Of the two brothers, Ponyboy says he gets along with Soda the best. This is partly because Soda's only two years older, but also because, according to Ponyboy, he at least tries to understand where he comes from. "I love Soda more than I love anybody, even mom or dad," Ponyboy says.

On the second page of the novel, Ponyboy says that there are four other boys whom he has "grown up with and consider family. We're almost as close as brothers." They are Two-Bit Matthews, Johnny Cade, Dallas Winston, and Steve Randle.

Sodapop and Darry are Ponyboy's brothers in The Outsiders. Sixteen-year-old Sodapop Curtis is a happy-go-lucky kid who works at a gas station. Sodapop is known for his good looks and positive personality. He gets along with Ponyboy and acts as a buffer between their older brother Darry. Behind Sodapop's cheerful character is a young man who has endured difficulties throughout life. Sodapop dropped out of school to help support the family and is going through a rough break up with the love of his life, Sandy. Soda's complex character is examined throughout the novel.

Darry is Ponyboy's oldest brother who is twenty years old. Darry is extremely rough on Ponyboy because he is Pony's primary caretaker. Darry was forced to decline an athletic scholarship in order to work two jobs to support the family. Ponyboy views him with contempt for the majority of the novel because he feels Darry is too hard on him. At first, Ponyboy misinterprets Darry's good intentions, but realizes that his brother loves him by the end of the novel. Darry is a buff, smart, hard-working kid, who is loyal to his friends. Ponyboy mentions that Darry is nothing like a Greaser and should be a Soc, but Darry loves his friends, so he stays faithful to the Greasers.