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Character analysis: Johnny Greasers
Poem Nothing Gold Can StayoreDally's
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Johnny, the meekest member of the Greasers, is slightly built, with big-black eyes in a dark tanned face and long, jet-black hair heavily greased and combed to the side. He has the appearance of "a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers." He always seems to be cringing and uncertain of himself, largely because he is a battered child. His father frequently beats him, and his mother ignores him except to scream at him about something. As a result, the Greasers are always trying to protect Johnny. Dally, in particular, watches out for him, and Johnny, in return, idolizes him; therefore, it is very surprising when Johnny tells Dally not to bother Cherry Valence. Obviously, Johnny has the moral …show more content…
courage to stand up for what is right. Before the novel begins, Johnny has been beaten up by the Socs for no reason. As a result, he is constantly nervous, afraid of being hurt again. By nature, Johnny is not prone to violence; in fact, he is a very mild and decent teenager, just like Pony. But he now carries a switchblade for self-defense. When he and Pony are jumped by the Socs in the park, Johnny uses his switchblade to defend himself. In the fighting that ensues, he stabs and kills Bob. Pony is in shock to see Bob lying dead on the ground, knowing that Johnny has killed him. After the murder, Johnny, who is usually meek and mild, takes control, for Pony is paralyzed with fear. He suggests that they go and find Dally to get help. Johnny then follows Dally's instructions, taking Pony with him to jump a freight train to Windrixville. During the train trip, it is Johnny who stays awake in the boxcar and gets Pony up when it is time to jump off the train. Even when they reach the comparative safety of the abandoned church, Johnny is the one who ventures out to purchase supplies; he is also the one who thinks of cutting their hair in order to disguise their appearance. Though Johnny is as frightened as Pony, he becomes the provider and comforter. During their hide-out in the abandoned church, Johnny and Pony become very close.
They spend their time reading Gone With the Wind aloud, discussing life, and admiring sunsets. When Pony recites a poem by Frost, entitled "Nothing Gold Can Stay," Johnny is sensitive enough to understand that beauty and innocence are transient and must be guarded like gold. Johnny also displays a lot of courage and grit when he arrives at the decision to surrender himself to the police. He has carefully analyzed the situation and decided that he does not want to endanger the innocent Pony any longer; neither does he want to stay on the run for the rest of his life. Also, since he has no police record, he feels he will be given a light sentence, especially since he killed Bob in self-defense. Johnny proves that he is heroic when he immediately, with no thought of self, goes into the burning church to save the children trapped inside. During the rescue effort, a burning timber falls on him. He is horribly burned and his back is broken. In the hospital, it is obvious that he is close to death. Before he dies, he writes Pony a letter in which he says that it is worth dying to have saved the children. He also encourages Pony to guard the gold, remember the good in the world, and rise above being a Greaser. Johnny's words of encouragement positively and dramatically change Pony's
life. Throughout the book, Johnny longs to receive love from his parents, who do not really care about him. He tells Pony that he is lucky to have Darry and Soda for brothers, for "I ain't got nobody." But Johnny never gives up hope about his mother and father. When Dally comes to visit him and Pony at their hide-out in the church, he wants to know if his parents have been worried about him. Dally has to tell him that they have not even made an inquiry about his whereabouts. Then when Johnny is admitted to the hospital after the fire, he again wants to know if his parents have asked about him. When his mother finally shows up at the hospital, shortly before he dies, Johnny thinks it is too late and refuses to see her. He is convinced that she will simply yell at him for being an inconvenience, for he has been treated as a bother throughout his existence. Out of the tragedy of Johnny's death, there emerges a positive hope for Pony. Because of his dying friend's words of encouragement, Pony promises to become a better person and reach out to help underprivileged children.
..., even by Ponyboy, who is the youngest of the group and two years younger than Johnny. Dally, the toughest and the meanest guy in The Greasers, is Johnny’s idol and seeing how he acts in situations probably influenced Johnny’s choice of action. Watching these bigger guys close in on him and Ponyboy being drowned, he was probably thinking, ‘what would Dally do what would Dally do?’ So he did what he thought Dally would do he pulled out the knife and stabbed Bob Sheldon so he would have extra hands helping him to fight off the rest of the guys, but that did not happen because they ran off in fear of Johnny.
He is smart, and gets good grades in school. This is purposefully mentioned several times within the story, and people tend to be surprised to learn that he is a Greaser. In addition, some Greasers are nicer than people tend to think. When the church burned down, Ponyboy and Johnny run in to save the children without a second thought. They acted with selflessness, putting the safety of the children above their own. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Ponyboy is asked if he and Johnny are "professional heroes". He responds by telling the entire story of how they're Greasers and Johnny is wanted for murder, shocking the man in the ambulance. It is difficult for him to believe that a group of Greasers would do something so heroic. Johnny dies as a direct result of their actions, but neither Ponyboy nor Johnny regretted what they
A juvenile delinquent, Dally was put in jail when he was only ten years old. This probably is the outcome of him having a lack of a guardian when he was a youth. In addition, while on Jay Mountain, Johnny asks Dally whether his parents wanted to know about him. Dally replies saying “‘... They didn’t. Blast it Johnny, what do they matter? Shoot my old man don’t give a hang whether I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don’t bother me none’”(88). This is the only time Dally mentions his father in the novel and his tone suggests his disdain. Dally’s insolent behavior has to be because of his inadequate parents. Likewise, Johnny is also a victim of bad parenting due to his abusive mother and father. In The Outsiders the narrator, Ponyboy, describes Johnny’s personality and family atmosphere in the exposition. Ponyboy states about Johnny: “His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him, except when she was hacked off at something, and then you could hear her yelling at him clear down at our house”(12). Pony’s statement shows how Johnny Cade has a difficult life at him and so he relies on the Greasers for family. This evidence leads to the conclusion that Johnny and Dally both have neglectful parents causing them to rely on their gang for family
Boom! Johnny drops to the floor. Kids are screaming. This is when Johnny is a hero for the second time in the story, The Outsiders. Johnny is a hero because he saved kids from a fire and Johnny saved Pony from dying.
Although Johnny and Dally share some homogeneous traits, they also have very vast differences. For example, Dally is a villainous, tenacious, and greaser while Johnny is a perceptive, polite, and craven greaser. Dally does not fear anything and Johnny is petrified of his own shadow. His own gang thinks that Dally is mean, and Johnny is the gang’s pet. Dally spent three years on the wild side of New York and gets harder and tougher there, when Johnny has not even left the neighborhood. The description befitting Dally in the book just makes him seem even scarier. “His eyes were blue, blazing ice, cold with the hatred of the whole world… He was tougher than the rest of us [them] tougher, colder, meaner.” (10). This shows the confident, and indignant look on Dally’s face. On the other hand, the description for Johnny just radiates empathy and sympathy, “If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you’ll have Johnny… he had a nervous, suspicious look in his eyes…”(11). The difference between the two characters is evident in these descriptions, Johnny is like a puppy and Dally could be compared to a tiger. Another example of how Johnny and Dally are different is seen through the fact that Dally loves to fight and has a huge record with the police, while Johnny detests fighting and has no tr...
...utside world, where you must learn to hate and neglect. Johnny enjoys reading, as he really enjoys reading “Gone with the wind.” Dally meanwhile, is described as not having the “shade of difference that separates a Greaser from a hood” on page fourteen. Dally is rough while Johnny is soft. Dally reflects hatred while Johnny reflects sensitivity. Therefore, when Dally and Johnny both die, Ponyboy feels like he has lost himself, because two major people who had such a big influence on him has left him.
Johnny saw that Pony was unhappy because he missed his brothers that were back home. Johnny thought that the only reason Pony was still there in the church with him was because he was the one who wanted to run away in the first place . Johnny finally decided to turn himself in because Pony hadn’t committed a crime and Johnny would be let of easy for saving the kids . Johnny would do anything for his buddies but he has a limit and I think that limit is girls. I don’t think that Johnny would of yelled at Dally if he wouldn’t of disrespected those girls the way he did. Although he yelled at his buddy he was the hero of those two Socs that Dally was disrespecting and he got a complement from them and they let him and Pony sit with
He knows that Ponyboy has a chance because he is very smart. How they both reacted to not having parents shaped and effected who they are. “Johnny was high-strung anyway, a nervous wreck from getting belted every time he turned around and from hearing his parents fight all the time(2).” This explains how Johnny was effected by his parents. His parents constantly fighting and beating him made him who he was. A part of him was effected by all the chaos and pain he had to go through every day. “We're poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we're wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next. Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while. I don't mean I do things like that. Darry would kill me if I got into trouble with the police.” Social roles are a part of self-image that makes a person who they are. In the novel Ponyboy explains the groups that the Greasers and Sochs were split into. This
She felt that speaking to Ponyboy and Johnny caused her boyfriend to be angry. The assault would not have occurred if she had no chosen to sit and converse with them. Dally even said, “‘Hey, didn’t I tell you we got us a spy...She said she felt it was her fault.’” Thanks to Cherry, Johnny was charged with manslaughter and not murder. He was surprised that a soc would help the greasers. “Johnny gagged and I almost dropped my hot fudge sundae.” Cherry showed by helping the greasers that she did not care about stereotypes and did not let them define her
Why should poets convey their thoughts through symbolism, imagery, figurative language, etc? In the poems “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost both use figurative language, symbolism and imagery to convey the reader’s thoughts differently. The poems topics are distinctly different, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” uses an allusion of Adam and Eve in “So Eden sank to grief” (lines 6). The poem “The Road Not Taken” uses symbolism to describe life as shown in “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”(lines 1). The poems can often use the same approaches such as figurative language and symbolism to captivate the reader.
"Get Out"-pg.79) This shows courage, bravery, empathy, and selflessness. One of the traits of a selfless person is the ability to put others first, as he saved Ponyboy and those kids despite the health hazards. People are what matter to Johnny. The children that needed saving are just like how Johnny needed saving from his abusive parents. He shows empathy as he knows how it feels to afraid, and doesn’t want the kids to be afraid like he was before. It is also very brave and courageous to go into a frightening, burning building just to save people. Another act of heroism Johnny demonstrates is when he stands up to Dally("Leave her alone Dally"-pg.22) This an courageous act. A hero is someone who steps up for others and Johnny steps up when Dally is harassing those girls. Dally is known to be unfriendly, mean and hostile, despite this, Johnny isn't afraid to tell Dally to stop. Johnny is a hero and is an amazing example of a hero, as anyone can be
In the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, Robert Frost illustrates how beauty fades and does not last forever. Throughout this poem Frost shows how nature begins in a beautiful manner and slowly goes away as time moves on. Beauty is shown in how green is considered gold, how the leaf diminishes, and how dawn goes down to day.
Everything that is ever perfect only lasts a limited amount of time. Robert Frost, in his poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, explains with very few words what it may interpret, yet the reader must look beyond the exterior of the poem to discover the underlying message that Frost intelligently disguised. To begin with, Frost’s first two lines are, “Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold.” these lines could be taken that a perfect moment in life, is like a sunrise, it is superb the few seconds it lasts. Next, in the poem is, “Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour.” this may sense that when in Outsiders Ponyboy and
Robert Frost wrote Nothing Gold can Stay in 1923, just five years before World War I. His original poem contained more ideas about the world ending and his political views. Frost frequently spoke out on international political affairs in his own way.
Robert Frost has very great talent. When he writes his poetry, he knows how to use his word choices. In the poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay it is basically about life from living to death. It also represents blamelessness and honesty. Gold can symbol as a meaning of wealth. Nature can show us many beautiful things throughout the world. However, I do remember the first time I heard of this poem. I was in fifth grade and we were watching the movie, The Outsiders. One of the characters quoted the line Nothing gold can stay. That was the first time I had even heard of this poem. It is necessary Nothing gold can stay because it can give us fictitious pleasure, nothing will remain the same forever, and anything that has feelings or sensation can’t be bought out with