Johnny: A Short Story

Johnny didn’t want to die. He felt like he hadn’t done enough and lived long enough. He was only sixteen years old. Johnny felt like it wasn’t fair.

Firstly, Johnny has the thought of killing himself. This can be seen when Johnny says, “’I can’t take it much more.’ Johnny spoke my own feelings. ‘I’ll kill myself or something.’” (59). Possibly, Johnny feels this way because he has been abused by his parents and the Socs. Johnny’s dad abuses Johnny physically; meanwhile, Johnny’s mom ignores Johnny like he is not visible. On the other hand, the Socs attacked Johnny causing him to lie on the ground like a dead body. Johnny stayed in a hurtful position until his gang came to rescue him.

Although Johnny retreats occasionally back in the present, Johnny’s life as a Canadian citizen shows a hint of ambiguity in terms of his emotional stability. His feelings of bitterness and hatred show signs of depression which ties into his hallucination of Owen in his grandmother’s basement. Johnny feels “a small, strong hand” pull him “forward from where” he stands and hears “Owen’s voice” say “DON’T BE AFRAID” because “NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO” him (517). His hallucination of Owen plays a role in his loss of doubt whereas he sees this also as a miracle. Losing a loved one can cause great signs of grief and takes effort for someone to overcome depression. Death has the capability of testing one’s faith, which in Johnny’s,

What is a hero? A hero is a person that helps someone and stands up for what is right.

1.) Johnny has several moments where his bravery in his character show. An obvious point about Johnny’s bravery is stabbing the Soc, Bob Sheldon. Johnny stabs Bob for an important reason, he needed to save Ponyboy from being drowned by the socs who jumped the two boys casually walking.

Johnny was talking to friends in front of his house when he saw a car he thought he recognized. He waves hysterically but gets no response. It is obviously not who he thought it was, and he continues walking with friends. The car followed, the driver got out, and fired a gun into the air. Scared and afraid everyone began to scatter; the shooter took aim hitting running Johnny in the back. Johnny was confused to what had just happened, trying to make sense of the shooting and why he couldn’t get up. Everyone figured the only reason he was shot to begin with was because he was black, or simply gang related. In rehab, Johnny never cries and doesn’t try to depend on his family to get things done. He just works to become independent again doing whatever he is told. He has changed drastically, even with how he would act in certain situations. In the final section, it goes back to Johnny laying in the road bleeding and paralyzed. He watches his would-be murderer come to stand over him tell him the reason why he shot him is simply because he waved at

“‘Come on, Johnny, we're running away.’” Johnny already has a lot of stress and grief, and will break like he did in the

In Johnny’s entire struggle against his disease, he never faltered or lost the will to continue living life to the best he could. Reason was essentially the spark that kept Johnny going, to keep him curious about his condition, to motivate him to continue his studies and experiments. For a good fifteen months, he had been transferred from his home to multiple hospitals, yet he saw each visit or operation as a mere distraction from his studies rather than one step closer towards his imminent death. I agree with the quote that the story is focused on the struggle between reason and disruption. In the span of the book, I did not seem to pick up on reason versus violence, but after thinking about it, I concluded that this could mean how the disease

Mavis Alder is tending bar. She doesn’t like tending bar, but she has a pretty face that’s good for tips, is a good listener, and enjoys making cocktails. She really just hates drunk people. Fortunately for Mavis, the bar is sparsely packed tonight. There are the regulars; Johnny and Yumay, two good friends who come to the bar every wednesday to drink, complain about their lives, and attempt to pick up Mavis. There is a depressed looking man in a tuxedo sitting at the end of the bar, staring hopelessly into his drink, and sitting next to him is a tall dark skinned man in a muscle shirt, a jacket, and some jeans. About 30 minutes ago he had come in and sat next to the tuxedoed man who, for whatever reason, seemed to had lost all hope in humanity.

Billy loves to wake up everyday to his favorite radio (Radio) station, After he wakes up, he gets ready for school. He puts his Chef Boyardee ravioli in the Microwave (Microwave). Then, Billy takes the TV remote (Infrared) and watches TV until his friend, Jimmy comes to his house. When they were walking to school, they saw a rainbow (visible). They were just about to exit the neighborhood, when Jimmy forgot his sunglasses. “I need my sunglasses, i have to protect my eyes from the UV Rays!” Jimmy said. (Ultraviolet) They were walking back to Jimmy’s house when Billy Fell and hurt his hand. “I think I need to see the Docor” Billy said. So, Jimmy and Billy went to the nearest hospital after Jimmy grabbed his sunglasses. The docor took an X-ray

Johnny, a lazy middle aged man who has yet to do anything good with his life all he does is sit around and think about how he wants to be the best at everything, richer than anyone else and smarter than anyone. But his problem is that he is blinded from the truth and has convinced himself that he is all of those things and he has no motivation to do anything to achieve his goals and he lives of money that he steals from others but still he barely gets by. He has fallen to sin but he sees no problem with it. One day he was out getting the few dollars of food that he could to help get him through another week when he realized he didn’t have a penny to his name so he decided that he needed more money but he was tired of getting twenty dollars at a time he wanted more but had no clue where he was going to get enough money. He was still in the grocery store trying all of the free samples trying to get some food in his food deprived body thinking where he was going to find a lot of easy money, then it hit him all of the spoiled rich kids at the prep school down the road have plenty of money and they leave it right were anyone with hands could take it. Without thinking twice about anything he took a hand full of sugar cookies and left

After putting the phone back in I felt that whole world spinning. Steadying myself, I took a quick moment to rest. “What should I do now?” I thought to myself, the fuzz’ll be here any moment and Dally had been abolishing a store item last time I saw him. Thinking back to what Johnny said earlier, I decided to go back to the store where I had seen Dally. Walking towards the store, I gradually started to gain speed as I noticed the alarm had started to ring in the direction of the store, despite the injuries from the rumble and my aching body. Running like the wind, Dally had exited the door and was on his way towards what seemed like another phone booth on the side of the street. Funny how I had never seen that there. I ran in the same direction, hoping the gang would get here soon, I reached the booth and stood in the way, between the phone and Dally. Surprised , he stared at my figure for a second, like he was taking in that I was actually standing right there, blocking him. “Get out of my way, Pony.” He said firmly, a couple dollar bills escaping from his back pocket.

"You can't leave the house my dear," he said and dropped the candlestick. When the candlestick hit the ground, it rolled and hit something. When I looked where the candlestick was, I saw Mr. Green. Even thought I didn't like him at all, I couldn't stand the sight of him dead. Then as I looked to the left, I saw my father sitting up, covered in blood. He mumbled "Don’t you forget how much I love you, and don’t ever forget. Even if I die here, I will always be alive in your hear," those were the last words of my father. I already had tears in my eyes as I saw my father there, helpless and dying. I said to him "You won't die, don’t talk that nonsense," he smiled, then his eyes began to close.

Spinning around, disorientated a bit from all the overwhelming feelings, Johnny wasn’t sure where to turn. As a hand gently touched his shoulder, he jumped slightly. Seeing Dixie, his eyes pleaded with her for help. Seeing the frantic look, she merely led him to a private lounge, normally used for families receiving bad news. As soon as the door closed, Johnny seemed to explode.

“I found you laying on the grass right after I realized that no one was in any of these houses. So, I picked you up and brought you to that house.”