Johnny Cade Character Analysis in The Outsiders

The second youngest of the greasers. Johnny is 16, a close friend to Ponyboy, and beloved by the entire gang. He comes from an abusive and neglectful home, and he spends as little time there as possible. The greasers are his true family, and they regard him as a little brother. Johnny's courageous acts and words, as well as his premature death, inspire Ponyboy to write about his experiences and to pursue a better path in his life.

Johnny Cade Quotes in The Outsiders

The The Outsiders quotes below are all either spoken by Johnny Cade or refer to Johnny Cade. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Johnny never walked by himself after that. And Johnny...now carried in his back pocket a six-inch switchblade. He'd use it, too, if he ever got jumped again.

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Page Number and Citation: 34

Explanation and Analysis:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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Page Number and Citation: 77

Explanation and Analysis:

"Johnny," Dally said in a pleading, high voice, using a tone I had never heard from him before, "Johnny, I ain't mad at you. I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't know what a few months in jail can do to you. Oh, blast it, Johnny...you get hardened in jail. I don't want that to happen to you. Like it happened to me..."

Related Characters: (speaker),

Page Number and Citation: 89

Explanation and Analysis:

I stared at the newspaper. On the front page of the second section was the headline: JUVENILE DELINQUENTS TURN HEROES.
"What I like is the 'turn' bit," Two-Bit said. ... "Y'all were heroes from the beginning. You just didn't 'turn' all of a sudden."

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Page Number and Citation: 107

Explanation and Analysis:

"We won," Dally panted. "We beat the Socs. We stomped them—chased them outa our territory."
Johnny didn't even try to grin at him. "Useless...fighting's no good..."

Related Characters: (speaker), (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 148

Explanation and Analysis:

"Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold..." The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died.

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Page Number and Citation: 149

Explanation and Analysis:

And even as the policemen's guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted...Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted...Two friends of mine had died that night: one a hero, the other a hoodlum. But I remembered Dally pulling Johnny through the window of the burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble. And now he was a dead juvenile delinquent and there wouldn't be any editorials in his favor. Dally didn't die a hero. He died violent and young and desperate, just like we all knew he'd die someday...But Johnny was right. He died gallant.

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Page Number and Citation: 154

Explanation and Analysis:

I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be...And don't be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself what you want. There's still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don't think he knows. Your buddy, Johnny.

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Page Number and Citation: 178-179

Explanation and Analysis:

One week had taken all three of them. And I decided I could tell people, beginning with my English teacher. I wondered for a long time how to start that theme, how to start writing about something that was important to me. And I finally began like this: When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home...

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Page Number and Citation: 180

Explanation and Analysis:

Johnny Cade Character Timeline in The Outsiders

The timeline below shows where the character Johnny Cade appears in The Outsiders. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...Corvair following him. He suspects it's a group of Socs, and thinks of his friend Johnny, who was recently badly beaten by the Socs. The car pulls up next to Ponyboy.... (full context)

Preserving Childhood Innocence Theme Icon

...Dallas Winston radiates danger and toughness, and was first arrested at the age of ten. Johnny Cade is younger than the others, has a violent home life, and is treated with... (full context)

Dally invites everyone to the double feature at the drive-in the next night. Ponyboy and Johnny agree to go. Dally reveals that he has broken up with his girlfriend, and Ponyboy... (full context)

The next night, Johnny and Ponyboy meet Dally and head to the drive-in. On the way, they make a... (full context)

When Johnny returns, Cherry smiles at him. But when Dally soon returns and offers Cherry a Coke,... (full context)

The Soc girls continue talking with Ponyboy and Johnny. Johnny eventually asks Cherry why she isn't afraid of them the way she is of... (full context)

Suddenly, Two-Bit comes up behind the boys and shouts, "Okay, greasers, you've had it." Johnny and Ponyboy jump, thinking that they're being confronted by a Soc. Johnny is particularly shaken.... (full context)

Ponyboy tells Cherry that the Socs attacked Johnny four months earlier: the greasers found Johnny lying motionless in the park. The severity of... (full context)

...shocks Cherry. She assures Ponyboy that all Socs are not like the ones who jumped Johnny. Ponyboy is doubtful. Cherry persists by reasoning, for instance, that not all greasers are not... (full context)

...then, Marcia notices a blue Mustang coming down the street, and everyone becomes nervous, especially Johnny. The car passes slowly and keeps going. (full context)

...them is Cherry's boyfriend, Bob, who pleads with the girls to forgive them for drinking. Johnny seems spooked, and Ponyboy realizes that Bob was the one who attacked Johnny. Insults fly... (full context)

After the Mustang drives off, Two-Bit leaves Johnny and Ponyboy in the vacant lot where the greasers hang out. As they smoke and... (full context)

Ponyboy returns to the greaser lot, where he finds Johnny, tells him what happened, and adds that he has decided to run away. Johnny agrees... (full context)

The park is deserted. As Johnny and Ponyboy walk and talk, the blue Mustang suddenly appears. Bob, his friend Randy, and... (full context)

...When he comes to, the Socs are gone and he's on the pavement next to Johnny and Bob's dead body. Johnny says, "I killed him." Johnny's switchblade is covered in blood. (full context)

Ponyboy panics, but Johnny is calm. He decides that they should go to Dally for help. They find Dally... (full context)

Hidden in a boxcar on a train they've hopped to Windrixville, Johnny looks at Dally's gun and wonders why Dally gave it to him, saying he could... (full context)

At the Windrixville station, Ponyboy realizes how his and Johnny's appearance make them look like hoods. He misses home, and thinks about how his dream... (full context)

...Saturday morning with his brothers. When he becomes fully alert, he sees a note from Johnny, who's gone out for supplies. (full context)

Later, Ponyboy and Johnny talk about killing Bob, and both of them cry out of fear and shock as... (full context)

...The boys entertain themselves by playing poker and reading aloud from Gone with the Wind. Johnny admires the Southern gentlemen in the novel and says that they remind him of Dally.... (full context)

As Johnny and Ponyboy devour a big meal at the Dairy Queen, Dally explains that Cherry felt... (full context)

Johnny announces that he thinks he and Ponyboy should turn themselves in to the police. Dally... (full context)

...the church. Suspecting that their discarded cigarette butts may have started the fire, Ponyboy and Johnny dash into the burning building. They find the children and lift them one-by-one out a... (full context)

...Ponyboy out while smothering a fire that had caught on Ponyboy's back. Dally then saved Johnny. He adds that Dally is burned but will be fine, while Johnny is in very... (full context)

...from the hospital. He sits in the waiting room with Jerry, worrying about Dally and Johnny, and finds himself telling Jerry the story of Bob's murder. Jerry agrees that Johnny acted... (full context)

Ponyboy, Darry, and Sodapop wait in the hospital waiting room for news about Johnny and Dally. Reporters and police question and take photos of Ponyboy and his brothers. Sodapop... (full context)

...headline "Juvenile Delinquents Turn Heroes." Two-Bit objects to the verb "turn," asserting that Ponyboy and Johnny were heroes all along. The article credits the boys with saving the children's lives. The... (full context)

Two-Bit and Ponyboy go to the hospital. First, they visit Johnny, who is very weak. Johnny asks for a copy of Gone with the Wind, and... (full context)

...but is unhappy that he'll have to miss the rumble that night. He asks about Johnny's condition, and is visibly upset when Two-Bit reluctantly tells him the truth. Dally asks for... (full context)

...grabs Ponyboy and insists that they rush to the hospital to tell the news to Johnny, whose condition is now critical. Dally drives Buck Merril's car so fast that a policeman... (full context)

As he drives, Dally says that if Ponyboy and Johnny just got tough like him, nothing could hurt them anymore. They would not have rushed... (full context)

At the hospital, the boys run to Johnny's room. A doctor tells them that Johnny is dying, and Dally threatens him with Two-Bit's... (full context)

Dally excitedly tells Johnny the news about the rumble, but Johnny replies, "Useless fighting's no good." Dally then tells... (full context)

Ponyboy also learns that Johnny left him his copy of Gone with the Wind, but the book and its Southern... (full context)

...let down his father by his involvement with Bob in the attack on Ponyboy and Johnny, and he tells Ponyboy that he plans to tell the truth at the hearing the... (full context)

...doesn't question him about anything other than his home life. Randy and Cherry testify that Johnny killed Bob in self-defense. The judge acquits Ponyboy and sends him home with his brothers. (full context)

Back at home, Ponyboy picks up Johnny's copy of Gone with the Wind while trying to write his essay. A letter from... (full context)

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Johnny Cade Character Analysis

Johnny Cade Quotes in The Outsiders

Johnny Cade Character Timeline in The Outsiders

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