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Overview

Johnny Cade is a character I look at when I think of a friend who has problems but can hide that fact. Johnny dealt with beatings from his family and the fear of being jumped whenever he went outside. The time you spend with him in the book shows you more of his character. You get to see him grow into a bolder character that you get attached to.

Johnnycake is a greaser who is affected by the world around him. He's a skittish kid who's been jumped by socs and tries to back out of things before they worsen. He usually hangs out with the gang, so he has someone to protect him if socs come by. Johnny keeps to himself most of the time unless he's forced to open his mouth. Even until the end, Johnny stayed kind and friendly to his friends and everyone he kept close.

When Ponyboy tells you about Johnny, you learn that Johnny gets beaten by his drunk father and gets yelled at and neglected by his mother. In chapter 3, Johnny says that he likes it when his father is beating him or his mother is yelling at him. Johnny only likes that better because at least his family knows that he's alive and someone in this world. No one notices when he leaves or enters the house.

When Ponyboy and Johnny are in the lot, Johnny says that he's close to breaking and he'll commit suicide. In Chapter 4, when Bob and his gang try to drown Ponyboy and beat him up, Johnny kills Bob. It was in self-defence, and he had to, or else Ponyboy would've been the one dead. In chapter 5, Ponyboy understands how much Johnny admires Dallas. He admires Dallas' bravery and his ability to stay strong, take the blame for things that aren't even his fault, and through all of his troubles, he's able to carry on.

On an early morning with Ponyboy, they watch the sunrise. Johnny says he wishes the sky could stay that silver gold colour all the time. Ponyboy expresses a poem Robert Frost wrote, and Johnny says that Pony's family all reflect each other. When the church is on fire, Johnny follows Ponyboy into the church to save the kids trapped inside.

In Chapter 8, when Ponyboy and Two-Bit visit him in the hospital, he expresses that he's tuff enough after being put into the paper for being a hero. Johnny tells Ponyboy that he used to talk about committing suicide, but now he doesn't want to anymore. He doesn't want to die because he realizes that there's still more to the world that he's never seen or done. Johnny needs more time to explore the world around him, see the sights and learn what he wants to know before he dies. A nurse walks into the room and tells Johnny his mother wants to see him, but Johnny says he doesn't want to see his mother. He starts to scold his mother, but he passes out cold.

After the rumble, Dallas and Ponyboy go to see Johnny in the hospital and tell him they kicked the socs out of their territory. Johnny instead tells Dallas that fighting is useless and doesn't change anything. He calls for Ponyboy to come closer and says his final lines of "Stay Gold, Ponyboy. Stay Gold..." before he passes away.

Events tumble one into another from this point on. Johnny's death leads to Dallas killing himself, and Ponyboy falls ill due to the amount of stress and grief he just went through in a night.

At the end of the story, we get our final message from Johnny in a letter Ponyboy finds in the book Gone With The Wind. After saving those kids from the fire, Johnny accepts dying now. He says that their lives were more valuable than his life, and they had more to live for and more to look forward to in life. He mentions that poem that Robert frost wrote and says that he understands the meaning behind the poem. It means when you're a kid, everything is new to you, and you're still pure and innocent with room to develop the world around you.

He tells Ponyboy to tell Dallas that saving the kids was worth it, look at a sunset, and tell him that there's still lots of good, but Dallas is already gone. He tells Ponyboy that just because he is a greaser doesn't mean anything, and Pony can still become the person he wants to be and embrace that.

Relationships

Dallas is Johnny's role model. Dally is wiser, smarter, and knows more about the world. Johnny usually sticks to Dally or Ponyboy as a close buddy, but he listens to what Dallas tells him. Dallas scolds Johnny after he asks about his parents. Dally tells him that they don't care about him. Even though Johnny had the gang to take care of him, it could never fill the hole in his heart that's for his parent's love.

Johnny tells Dallas the plan of returning because since Johnny has no police record, he has a chance of getting off easier and for Ponyboy to go back with his brothers. Dallas scolds him but agrees to the plan. Though, if Dallas had told him to continue hiding as a fugitive, he would have followed Dallas' orders. Johnny would follow Dallas to the ends of the earth if it came to that point. That is how much trust he has in the one hood, Dallas Winston.

For Ponyboy, the two are best friends who usually hang out. They stick together and get along due to their quiet nature and young understanding of the world. Johnny doesn't know much about books, but he's open about it and willing to try and understand the meaning. After what happened in the park, they stay together and comfort each other in times of need.

They usually read each other like an open book and could work together through most things as long as they had each other. Ponyboy and Johnny both understand that nothing can replace the love you feel from a parent, not even your closest friends. The poem by Robert Frost that Ponyboy tells him makes him think long and hard about it. When he finally understands what it means, it gives him some peace when he dies. It helps him accept his death and the fact that the lives he saved will be able to go on and do great things, and he has everything he can in this life.

Connection

Depending on your background, you connect with Johnny Cade in different ways. From what we know about Johnny's past, he had a tough life and was affected by it. Johnny never knew what care and affection were because his parents abused and neglected him, and he learned that the world around him was divided because of the socs.

Johnny is skittish and on edge about certain things because of the socs. He was traumatized after Bob and his gang had jumped him. In his eyes, you have to be careful when you are alone because the world tries to hurt you at every moment. Johnny knows better than to trust people out of the blue because he cannot even trust his parents to treat him correctly.

In Chapter 5, Johnny starts to cry after Ponyboy reminisces about the night before. Johnny was filled with grief and guilt that he had killed someone and would have to live with that forever. Along with that, he dragged his best friend into this mess. Most people who have read this have heard a phrase close to it with almost the same meaning.

During the week in the church, Ponyboy would read Gone With The Wind to Johnny to pass the time, and Johnny got more out of the book than Ponyboy did. Ponyboy was surprised because he was supposed to be the one who got the deeper meanings, not Johnny. Ponyboy knows that Johnny never did well in school because Johny takes longer than most kids to learn.

In Chapter 8, Two-Bit and Ponyboy visit Johnny in the hospital. During the visit, a nurse walks in and tells Johnny that his mother is here to see him, but Johnny says he does not want to see her. The nurse is surprised and says that it's his mother, and Johnny retorts saying: "She's probably come to tell me about all the trouble I'm causing her and about how glad her and the old man'll be when I'm dead. Well, tell her to leave me alone. For once" 一 "for once just to leave me alone." Afterwards, he passes out.

This paragraph surprised me, and it hit a nerve inside me. It made me feel remorse and empathy for Johnny. He's annoyed with his parents hating him and scolding him constantly for every little action he does. Johnny wants his parents to stop yelling at him and leave him alone, be proud of him and accept what he does with life. In my own words, Johnny said: "She's gonna come in here and scold me again for what I did. She isn't gonna be nice and try to support her son. She and my dad'll be happier when I'm dead because they won't have to deal with me, and my insolence anymore. When will she leave me alone and let me live my life?"

Johnny is the kid in the friend group that you're glad to have met. They've had a better life than they had before meeting the group, and you're happy about that. They are usually the group's little sibling because everyone defends and protects them. They have that one person they cling onto in the group more than the others, usually, the tough one in the group. In Johnny's case, he clings to Dallas.

I relate to Johnny in different problems and scenarios. The society surrounding Johnny affects him and shapes the world he perceives throughout his life. It doesn't always affect you in a good way but instead traumatizes you and screws up your life. It affects the way you'll interact with people and makes you see the world from a different shade.

Through my time, I've gone through lots of things, and it has shaped the way I behave and look at the world. I see the world as a place you can't trust, and you can't make attachments to anything alive because they all leave at some point. You can't put all of your trust in people because they could use it against you. Johnny feels that his gang is the only people he can trust, and the world around him wants to hurt him at every chance it gets. Socs are people you can't trust, and they don't understand anything that a greaser has to go through.

I may take the role of what Dallas is in my group, but I connect with Johnny too. I'm very nervous in my neighbourhood, and I overreact to things while I cling to one person in my group. A friend and I have a Johnny and Dallas dynamic where we stick close to each other whenever we go outside for walks to hang out. This friend may be older than me, but they trust me more for advice than they do anyone else.

When you're Johnny in your group, you're looked down upon more because of your sensitivity in situations which in Johnny's case is not a great thing because he's a greaser. You stay quiet most of the time to try and not make a fool of yourself, and there's usually only one or two people in the group that understand you, so you cling to them.

Though just because you're sensitive doesn't mean that you're a defenceless individual. My friend is very defensive in this position and will do anything to defend the gang and me to the best of his ability before he knows that it's not a good idea to get any farther. They're sensitive, but they will become defensive and try to stick up for themselves whenever they know it's the right thing to do.

Conclusion

Johnny Cade is a character, whose sensitive, cautious, defensive, and has a developing look at the world. Throughout his life, he was mistreated and forced into a society that thinks that he is dirt and beats him up. The gang had saved him and showed him that there is a good in this world and to keep your friends close. Dallas showed him that even though you've had a tough past, you can still move on and take the world on by force. He clung to his friends because they were the only source of care he could feel while he hid the feelings of misery from his parents and the socs.

A 16-year-old whose whole life was misery to be going through every time he woke up. Even living in his house was a pain, and he didn't want to deal with it that he would rather sleep in the lot like a homeless person than be at home. Johnny would have to live with the fact he had murdered someone. Even if it's out of self-defence, it wouldn't change anything. After saving the kids, he realized that he had saved lives that could do wonders one day. He could accept his death and finally be at rest after everything he's been through