Johnny from the Outsiders

Author’s Note: Throughout this piece you will read about Johnny, and everything that happened to him. Also, why I think he is a dynamic character.

Have you ever read the book The Outsiders? Well if you did, you would probably know that Johnny is one of the main characters in the book. I personally believe that he is the most important character. The reason this is because he has changed the most threw out the book. Johnny has a family and lives at home but he doesn’t like his parents, he says that all they do is yell at him. Sounds like a fun life, huh?

Well, some things that you should know about Johnny would be that he is a greaser, very poor, and is best friends with Ponyboy. I can relate to him, but I wouldn’t say that I’m a greaser. Greasers are a group that is poorer than other people are. I’m not saying that I come from a rich household, but if I was in the book The Outsiders I would be considered a Soc. Just like Bob, the guy that Johnny killed. I don’t think that Johnny would have killed him unless he needed to. Which he did, he killed him for his own safety. So, he used his self defense.

There are two types of characters, dynamic and static. Johnny would be a dynamic character. Throughout the book Johnny changes a lot, he realizes that killing someone doesn’t leave a good impression on you; he has bad luck, and really doesn’t like to get into trouble. In the beginning Johnny was a good kid that liked to stay out of trouble. But he was always at the wrong place at the wrong time. Where ever he would go, the Socs would also be there, and let’s just say that is ever ends well. But in the end, he ends up killing someone for his self defense. At the time I’m sure he thought it was a good idea but if he were still alive to think about it I’m sure he would feel terrible for killing him. Also, when the church burnt down people thought that he burnt it down, sense he was one of the people in it at the time. But he was really going in to save the children that were still in the burning church. Sadly, he got burned very badly and ended up in the hospital.

The night the Ponyboy and Johnny went to the movie, changed Johnny’s life. They had picked up some girls that had happened to be, Socs. And Bob (The main Soc.) Found out and was not happy with them. After Johnny and Pony left the movie they left and went to the park. Ponyboy noticed that Bob and 4 other Socs. Were coming towards them, he asked Johnny why they were at the park too. Johnny said “I don’t know. But I bet they are looking for us. We picked up their girls.” Ponyboy and Johnny got into a fight with them and Bob had started to pull Ponyboy into the kids’ pool. Johnny got very angry and took out his switchblade, and killed Bob. Your actions are what make events in life happen. You might not think that your actions are important but they really are. Johnny never intended to kill Bob, but his actions ended up killing someone. Another action that affected Johnny was him going into the church to save the children from the burning church. He wanted to change his life around. He didn’t want to be the bad kid that he was. Johnny thought that if he went into the church and saved the kids people wouldn’t think bad things about him anymore. Even though after killing someone I don’t think that people would think differently about you.

As the book went on, I noticed that Johnny really wanted to change his life. But it was hard with the people that we hung around. In the end when he died the last thing he heard was say gold. What does this mean to you? To me it means stay the same amazing person that you were when you were still living.