The Theme Of Johnny In The Outsiders

The Outsiders: Johnny is Innocent
In the novel, The Outsiders, the author, S.E. Hinton, discusses the conflict between two unalike gangs, the Socs and the Greasers. The two gangs have always had tension with one another due to the fact that each group lived on different sides of the town. There was five main greasers in the novel. The boys were the best of friends. They included, Ponyboy Curtis, Dallas Winston, Johnny Cade, Darrel Curtis, Sodapop Curtis, Two-bit Matthews. Johnny was the outcast of the group. Johnny was short and scrawny. The author described him looking like a ¨lost puppy¨ (Hinton, 11) or a ¨puppy that has been kicked too many times.¨ (Hinton, 11) Johnny was never known to hurt anyone. He was always the soft one of the group,

and he never became hard or tough. Although Johnny killed someone, he was innocent.
On the night of the stabbing, Ponyboy, Dallas, and Johnny encounter two girls at the drive-in, Cherry Valance and Marcia.

The two girls have boyfriends but they had ditched them and chose to sit with the 3 greasers. As the movie was ending, they had left and started walking home. On their way, the girls’ boyfriends and their friends pulled up in a blue mustang. They were highly intoxicated. They took the girls and drove off. Later that night, Johnny and Ponyboy take a walk to the park, but only to find the same light blue mustang that they had encountered before. Five Socs leaped out of the blue mustang and headed straight to where Johnny and Ponyboy had been sitting, the jungle gym. The two gangs exchanged insults and it turned into a fight. Two Socs grabbed Ponyboy and threw his head into the fountain. Ponyboy tried to fight back but it didn't work. He was drowning and all Johnny could do was watch. Johnny wasn't much of a fighter but he'd do anything for the gang. He saw his best friend drowning and knew the only way to stop it was to physically hurt whoever was drowning Ponyboy, and that was Bob and David. He swung out his switch-blade and stabbed Bob. The gang was drunk and scared, so they had no choice but to ran away from the scene. Johnny saved ponyboys life. "They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you. "(Hinton, 56) This quote was chosen because it clearly states that Johnny was only trying to protect his

buddy.
In addition to my first piece of evidence, not only was he protecting Pony but he was protecting himself.

The Socs were beating Johnny to ground. They each had blades, and Johnny was scared. Johnny shouldn't be blamed for what he did. He was being jumped and tried protecting himself. He knew that the Socs didn't like him and wouldn't care if he was dead. "And they had a blade...they were gonna beat me up...." (Hinton, 56) As you can see, Johnny clearly stated that he didn't it out of self defense, not out of intoxication or revenge from when they had previously jumped

him.
Some might argue, that Johnny is at fault. There is always two sides to a story. Johnny didn't have to kill Bob. He could've easily punched Bob and pulled him off of Ponyboy. There are a lot of things that Johnny could've done to save Pony. Considering the fact that Johnny wasn't the biggest kid, he was always the lean and compact one most places, he didn't feel that he was strong enough to take 5 Socs without a weapon. "He was the youngest, next to me, smaller than the rest, with a slight build." (Hinton, 11) this quite was chosen because it describes Johnny perfectly. After all the Socs were known for never playing fairly. They would've done anything to protect themselves.
In conclusion, Johnny is innocent. He did the things that he did for good reasons. He did it to save a life, and to save himself. Johnny shouldn't be blamed for what he did considering the circumstances. Nobody should've went what Johnny went through.