Change In Johnny Cade

“Change is inevitable. Change is constant.” a quote written by Benjamin Disraeli. Obviously, this is very true, and S.E. Hinton does a great job at showing that in the novel The outsiders. Throughout the book that the whole gang changes in some way. But there is one character in particular that really shows a change throughout the novel, Johnny Cade. Johnny’s change impacted a lot of characters for better or for worse. Johnny Cade goes from being shy, to helpful, to brave.
To begin, Johnny Cade starts off the story as a quiet, shy and innocent 16-year-old boy. When ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally go to a drive-in movie they meet a couple of soc girls. Since johnny is not known for talking much, when he stands up for the girls because Dally annoys them, it throws Dally off. “He stared at johnny in disbelief. Johnny couldn't say “boo” to a …show more content…
“I killed him,” johnny said, “ I killed that boy”(56) Killing someone might not be helpful in a way, but johnny killed the soc because the soc’s friend was going to kill ponyboy. Johnny was helping save what he thought could be ponyboy’s life. It all comes down to what Johnny thought would happen, was ponyboy going to drown or was the soc going to let him live. In this situation johnny did not want to wait to find out, so he did what he thought would help ponyboy the most, killing Bob. After Johnny killed bob they had to get away so they would not go to jail. Ponyboy and Johnny are now living in an abandoned church. “We are going to cut our hair, and you're going to bleach yours.”(71) Despite the fact that ponyboy nearly throws a fit at this, he knows that johnny is just trying to help keep him away from jail. Johnny also states that they will have their descriptions in the paper. People are looking for the kids who killed a soc. Johnny wants to protect ponyboy and help him not get caught, and go to