My analysis of the Shepard siblings based on the informations of the books (+Who I think is the youngest between Curly & Angela)
When it comes to Tim, it seems like people either see him as a father-figure for his siblings, or like an abusive and/or neglecting brother. From what I read, he’s more likely to be somewhere in between. I don’t think he’s a father-figure, because the way he is described sounds much more like a big brother than a father. But he’s most certainly not a cold and/or abusive older brother either. It’s obvious that he does care for his younger siblings and tries to watch out for them. We can see it through his actions when he beats up Bryon right after Angela tells him that he got her drunk and cut her hair (That Was Then This Is Now, p.79-80), with that one time he caught Curly playing chicken with Ponyboy as they were burning holes in each other with the ends of their cigarettes, he smashed their heads together and swore to kill them both if they ever pulled a stunt like that again. (Do you know anything that sounds more like a big brother than that?) Or even more when he talked about Curly to Ponyboy before the rumble (The Outsiders, p.118). Ponyboy didn’t even say anything about him, Tim just randomly brought Curly up, then he went on with how the kid got himself stuck in the reformatory for the next six months and how fucking stupid he was. When you just start talking about someone to a random guy you barely know, it has to be a person that you either love or hate very much. Plus, the scene is described as Tim telling all this stuff about Curly more to himself than to Ponyboy. He speaks about Curly being in the reformatory with regret and frustration.
Tim is described as being smart (That Was Then This Is Now, p. 16), strict—as he leads his gang—(The Outsiders, p.118), and I noticed that he seems to have some kind of ethics. Two-Bit said that if Dally didn’t pull a blade on him, Tim would fight fair (The Outsiders, p.27), he acts politely towards greasers that he doesn’t really know about but has nothing against. So I believe that he could work with some sort of “being neutral towards people until someone does something that I don’t approve of” mentality.
He’s a good fighter since Dally says that he can surely pack a few punch (The Outsiders, p.52) knowing he broke three of his ribs that night, and he was fighting two guys at once during the rumble (The Outsiders, p.123)—-(he also stepped on Ponyboy, but that’s another subject lmao).
He is scary as hell, “[Tim] scared me. He was what I would call a rough guy. Curly was mostly mouth, but Tim backed up anything he said. He really was a hood. […] There was something about Tim Shepard—-his scarred face, his fighter’s slouch, the flickering of his black eyes—-that really let you know he meant business.” (That Was Then This Is Now, p.79-80)—-I read something about that as I was doing research on street gangs organisation for a current novel I’m working on. It said that leaders had to be scary, they had to cause fear and back up every single threat they said, because if they didn’t, then nobody would listen to them.
Now to finish, here’s some funfacts about him: Tim seems to read the morning paper a lot lol, “Once we even found Tim Shepard, leader of the Shepard gang and far from his own turf, reading the morning paper in the armchair. ” (The Outsiders, p.89) + “‘Said he [Tim] saw my picture in the paper and couldn’t believe it didn’t have « Wanted Dead or Alive » under it.” (Dally in the hospital, The Outsiders, p.105). And I suspect that he could have a job based on “Slashed tires ain’t no joke when you’ve got to work to pay them” (Two-Bit talking about Dally slashing the Shepard Gang’s car, The Outsider, p.27)”.
Ok now, Curly is the one who gets the most mischaracterized, especially by people who ship him with Ponyboy (It’s not an attack against them, they are allowed to ship whoever they want, I’m just mentioning that it’s among them that I find the most fan-made interpretations of his character). Curly is not a silly little hyperactive guy that likes to cuddle, nor is he secretly smart and observant. If two different dudes both first introduced him as being a dumb hood, it’s for a reason.
Curly got a lot of emotion inside, he is filled with anger and rage, and fear. He acts on impulsivity and lash out on others because it makes him feel powerful. In a lousy neighborhood, being strong and feared means to be safe. If you keep quiet and don’t defend yourself like M&M, you’re just gonna become the target of all the guys like Curly (TWTTIN, p.15). If you don’t attack others, you’ll get jumped. The more aggressive and scary you are, the more respected you’ll be. That’s why Curly is so violent towards everybody, he counts on this to be safe, because in reality, he is more scared than anything. But it also helps him exteriorize his feelings and gives him a sense of control. Although it doesn’t seem to be as efficient as he thinks, based on Bryon’s thoughts: “Curly was mostly mouth, but Tim backed up anything he said. He really was a hood.” (TWTTIN, p.79-80). The difference between Tim and Curly is that Tim seems to put his feelings aside in order to make the smartest decisions possible. In contrast to Curly who acts before thinking and just hits and shouts the first thing that comes to his mind causing him to threaten more than he actually acts, leading others to not take him as seriously as Tim.
Curly is described by Ponyboy as being tough, cool and hard-as-nails (The Outsiders, p.115), meaning that he is not sentimental and shows no sign of sympathy, fear or worry. It’s pretty accurate of how his character has been interpreted in the movie of That Was Then This Is Now (I can’t get over the huge death glare he gives the cafeteria lady the literal first minute he appears lmao).
Him and Ponyboy actually gained mutual respect only because neither of them chickened out during the dare, they admired each other’s toughness “Curly was an average downtown hood, tough and not real bright, but I liked him. He could take anything.” (The Outsiders, p.115).
Curly admires Tim as much as he fears him (pretty much like every younger sibling) and it’s probably the only one he doesn’t dare to interrupt while he speaks (TWTTIN, p.79).
He seems pretty protective of Angela “Curly had a special grudge against me anyway. I used to go with his sister; she says she broke up with me, which was the truth, but I was spreading it around that I broke up with her and was giving all kinds of cool reasons.” (TWTTIN, p.15).
He is the youngest member of the Shepard Gang (The Outsiders, p.119).
People like to see Angela as the iconic female character who likes to gossip, paint people’s nails and is the one sweet confident who cares deeply about others. Yeah, umh, no…As Bryon said, “She was a tough little chick. […], hard-as-rock Angela Shepard. ” (TWTTIN, p.70). Angela is mean and “She wasn’t famous for an even temper.” (TWTTIN, p.36).
She is an excellent manipulator and uses other people to achieve her goals. She is tough because she doesn’t let her real emotions be seen. She acts like she got everything under control even though it’s the complete opposite of it. She never breaks.
Angela can’t stand things not going her way. She wants attention and really does not take it well when someone ignores her. She is used to get noticed and to seduce any boy she wants. And it’s exactly what happened with Ponyboy as she dumped Bryon in order to date him instead. But Ponyboy simply acted as if she wasn’t alive, and he was actually the first guy she got eyes for that didn’t even notice her. So naturally, she really didn’t took it well and wanted to make him pay (even though Ponyboy didn’t do anything wrong, he was just completely oblivious that she got an eye for him. So, no. Angela isn’t bestie with Ponyboy, she hates him and if Mark wasn’t there the night she manipulated a guy into attacking him to avenge herself, she could have killed him (TWTTIN, p.38)).
Bryon insists a lot on Angela’s beauty. In fact, all the Shepard siblings are good looking, since Tim is described as looking like the model JD you see in movies and magazines (The Outsiders, p.117-118) and Curly is said to be a miniature version of him (The Outsiders, p.115).
Now let’s take a look at the Shepard’s family situation. Bryon described his experience while waiting for Angela at her house when he picked her up to go on a date as, “At Angela’s house her mother and her stepfather were always fighting and screaming and throwing things, and sometimes her brothers Tim and Curly would get in on it, and I’d sort of duck flying objects until Angela came out of her room, cussing and throwing things along with the rest of them.” (TWTTIN, p. 33-34). We can see that they are living in a very conflictual family who are always shouting and fighting each other. Also a very interesting thing is the mention of the stepfather. While in the book, the biological father is never mentioned, in the movie Mark and Terry make fun of Curly about his absent father joking about how he wouldn’t be able to recognize him saying « what’s the most confusing day in the life of Curly Shepard? Father’s Day. » I know that the movie is not canon, but I still thought it would make sense with the mention of the stepfather, plus the fact that a lot of families in their type of neighborhood were fatherless.
Also we have to take in consideration that there is a before and an after her marriage with the «creep friend of her brother’s » that is, in my opinion, probably a member of the Shepard Gang.
Angela’s confessions to Mark and Bryon the night she was drunk, give us very interesting information about her life and her relationships. “We drove around for a while, Angela telling us all of her problems—-her husband didn’t have a job, her brothers were both in jail, her old man was drunk all the time, and her father-in-law was always slapping her bottom. […] ‘I get so sick’ Angela was saying. ‘I feel like I can’t take it any more, life is lousy. I’m lousy, everything is lousy. I can’t stand it at home, I can’t stand it at school, I can’t stand it anywhere. I always thought, hell, I can get what I want. Get what I want and everybody can go to hell. But it doesn’t work that way, Bryon. I’m going to hell right along with them. I’m already there.’” (TWTTIN, p.70). We can see that behind her facade she is actually miserable. She doesn’t have any self-confidence and gets mistreated in every aspect of her life. She is stuck living in her poor husband’s house where she gets raped by her father-in-law (I feel deep hate and disgust towards this man like wtf??). Her old man, so probably her stepfather, is drunk all the time and so there is definitely a huge problem of alcohol in their family since there’s no doubt that Tim drinks alcohol, Curly got sent in reformatory for getting caught trying to break into a liquor store and Bryon clearly mentions several times how Angela drinks a lot (keep in mind that during all this, she is like 15). I like how she mentions her brothers both being in jail as one of her problems because it means that she is affected by that and that she possibly misses them. And I’m curious about why she didn’t say anything about her mother. It could mean that she doesn’t have anything against her, even though we know that she fights a lot with her husband. Well it could be because she is trying to defend her kids…? I honestly doubt it. The Shepard kids has ended up too fucked up in my opinion to have a good mother figure at home.
Whether it is in The Outsiders or That Was Then This Is Now, all the Shepard siblings are multiple times mentioned as severely cursing (almost every time they appear which I find kinda funny) and it makes sense with their highly conflictual home environnement.
Angela is 100% the younger sibling of the Shepard family (said by the younger sibling of a family of three kids herself). I first hesitated between Curly and her because of Curly’s mischaracterization by the fans, but after re-taping every single mention or allusions of the three siblings in the two novels, it’s not hard to figure it out. She just got the vibe. The way she has a tendency to rely on others, especially her brothers to help her when she has problems to solve. The youngest siblings are used to have somebody helping them when they are in trouble, because the parents tells the older siblings at a very young age to help and watch out for their younger sibling. Plus, many study sites like eNotes that offer information to help understand That Was Then This Now present Curly as being one of Angela’s older brothers.
