Character Sketch - The Outsiders - Johnny Cade

In the novel, The Outsiders, one of the major characters is Johnny Cade. He is a dynamic and 3 dimensional character. Johnny is 16 years old boy, and a friend of the main character, Ponyboy Curtis. He was his gang’s pet. Johnny was a greaser. Throughout most of the story he wasn’t scared of dying, he was scared of another gang, the Socs. A Soc, Bob, beat him up. Because of that past event, he had been very cautious. He wasn’t wanted at home, his parents didn’t care for him. His gang cared for him and gave him love. But, the gang could never replace his parents.

Johnny had a tanned face and because he was a greaser, he had heavily greased his black hair and combed to the side. He had shaggy bangs on his forehead and hair was curled behind his ears. The gang thought of him as their kid brother, because he was smaller than most of the gang. In Ponyboy’s opinion, Johnny is in need of a haircut and resembles of a “dark puppy that’s been kicked too many times” (Hinton 11). His most prominent feature is his “big black eyes” (Hinton 11), which had a nervous and suspicious look. At the end of the novel he got a broken back, he was severely burned and looked pale.

Johnny Cade is a complex character. He changed since the beginning of the story from the end of the story. For example, in the beginning, he said he didn’t mind dying, but when he was in a critical condition at the end, he was scared of dying. He valued his life in the end and his gang. He thought fighting with the Socs was useless. Johnny varied in emotion, sometimes he was a scared and sad little puppy and sometimes he was courageous. For example, when Dallas (or Dally) was hitting on Sherri (or Cherry) and Marcia, he excused himself from the scene so he wouldn’t be part of it. But after awhile Johnny stood up for them. He did this mostly for Cherry, which means he liked her because he usually didn’t argue with anyone, especially Dally, his ‘hero’. An example of this was when Dally was finally proud of Johnny, his eyes glowed; it was what he wanted from the start. Because of this, I think that Johnny wanted to be like Dally. Ponyboy said that he was the “real character of the gang” (Hinton 10). His friendship for Ponyboy is a big part of his life too. An example of this is that he ran away with Ponyboy, and killed Bob, for Ponyboy. It’s obvious that Johnny would do anything for Ponyboy.

It is evident from the actions and behaviors of Johnny that he is a person who would think of others before himself. As a result, it is easy to be emotional because he did so much for others that he ended up dying, to protect something gold.