The Outsiders Johnny And Dally Similarities

Living the way that Johnny did, he did something great in his life. He didn’t deserve to die, but he died a hero and not everyone in the town where the greasers lived agree. Johnny lived in a world where he was probably scared every time he walked around town and that flat out sucks. He didn’t have the best family life, but he had Dally and that was pretty great because Dally loved Johnny. “Why can I take it when Dally can’t? And then I knew. Johnny was the only thing Dally loved. And now Johnny was gone.” (Hinton pg. 152).

But once he sees Johnny it gives him something to love and care about. He made sure that Johnny didn’t become violent. He says in the book multiple times he cares about Johnny he said “Johnny…I just don’t want you to get hurt.” A quote also says that “Johnny was the only thing that Dally loved. And now Johnny was gone.” Later in the book Johnny dies and it is too much for Dally and he gets himself killed. Dally was so distraught, he wanted to be dead.

A very important comparison Dally and Johnny have is their parents. Johnny’s parents do not care about him. They either beat him or ignore him completely. “His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him” (12). His parents are alcoholics and do not care if he comes home or not. Likewise, Dally parents also do not care about him. If he was put in jail by age ten, then his parents clearly do not care enough to discipline him. He rarely talks about his parents, but when he does, he has nothing nice to say. “‘Shoot, my old man don’t give a hang whether I’m dead in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter’” (88). Dally talks about his father with disgust, like he never did anything for him, which may be true. The way Dally’s parents and Johnny’s parents both do not care about them makes these two characters very similar.

The way in which Dally reacts to problems he’s given is weak and reckless. How he reacts to Johnny’s death is perfect example of how Dally can’t deal with any problem headed his way. When Johnny dies, Dally can’t handle his grief, so he attempts to rob a store, leading to his eventual demise. If Dally was strong enough to handle Johnny dying, he never would’ve done something so reckless and get himself killed. Pony boy says that he “knew that was what Dally wanted.” (154) Dally is used to life of a criminal, and he knows better than to do what he did. He made the police believe that he had a loaded gun on purpose, not as a heat of the moment

While Ponyboy is riding to the hospital after the church fire a man says, “‘I swear, you three are the bravest kids I’ve seen in a long time . . . “‘ (95) Johnny is part of the three that are considered heroes. After Dally died the author states that “Dally didn’t die a hero. He died violent, and young and desperate.”(94) Dally pulled an unloaded gun on the police and it made them draw their guns and shoot him. Dally basically committed suicide because the police did not know that the gun was not loaded, so they had to protect themselves while Dally was hung out to die.

Dally lived a hard life from the get go, he was from the "Rough side of New York." Dallas' life required great amounts of energy to sustain because there was no tranquility of his emotions at anytime other than when he slept. Constantly the reader and Ponyboy found Dally in an aggregated mood of on fire with anger. With the passing of Johnny the only thing of a normality in Dally's rocked and shaken world Dallas had lost his footing no longer on the ground, nothing steady to hang onto his world spun further down into complete turmoil and despair with every fleeting second. Dally saw only one way out, a permanent solution for a temporary problem, so Dally pulled the unloaded pistol out on the cops and fatally shot numerous times to the chest. "When I saw his face on his motionless body before it hit the ground I saw a face of grim victory." But Johnny's death affected everyone to some extent; Ponyboy, his closest friend suffered a severe mental breakdown and as for the rest like Soda it really got them thinking too. Johnny died young and he had seen it all, all the wrong things. It could have been any one of them but it was innocent Johnny a Greaser, who defied the stereotypes and died for a noble cause.

Dally is a criminal who did many bad things, and had gone to jail many times. Dally has been involved in many gang related crimes. He lied, he cheated, and he stole. He also went to rodeos and rumbles. He even jumped people. Dally lived a life of crime and didn’t take any actions to turn his life around, he just kept doing the wrong thing. And after Johnny dies, Dally has the police kill him. He does this by pulling a gun so that the police will shoot at him; and they do. He died before he hit the floor.

Another difference between Johnny and Dally is that Johnny sees good in the world while Dally does not. Dally thinks that there is no good in the world and if you are a greaser, then you are a hoodlum. In Johnny’s letter, it states, “There’s still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don’t think he knows” (152). Johnny is trying to say that Dally should see

Johnny and Dally are basically polar opposites with respect to their personalities. At the beginning of the story, Johnny’s personality is described. The author writes, “Johnny couldn’t say “boo” to a goose… I had never heard Johnny talk back to anyone” (35). It is shown that Johnny is a very shy and sensitive boy. Since Johnny

In the letter that Johnny left for Ponyboy,“‘There's still a lot of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don’t think he knows’” (179). The note Johnny left for Ponyboy to tell Dally, but it was too late for that. Ponyboy says, “Johnny worshipped the ground Dallas walked on”(25). This shows that Johnny is just Dally’s pet. Johnny knows that Dally cares about him but he does not show it because is a tough person. All in all, Both characters care for each other.

Johnny is scared of his own shadow and Dally does not fear anything. His own gang thinks that Johnny is the gang’s pet and dally is mean. Johnny has never left the greaser neighborhood, when Dally spent three years on the wild side in New York and gets tougher and harder there.

Although Dally does not have a perfect home life with his parents, he has everything else. He has an abundance of friends, he always gets what he wants, and everyone is scared of him. Is that not what a Greaser wants? All of Johnny and Dally’s friends wish they lived longer than they did. No matter how hard kids lives are, no one deserves to die that young.

As I stated above, Dally had proven that he cared about Johnny, many times throughout the book. Dally had practically taken Johnny in as his family. He was like a mentor to Johnny, he wanted him to do well and have a better life than him. Johnny was the greasers’ “kid brother,” meaning that everyone cared for him as a younger brother. On page 89, Dally says to Johnny, “Johnny, I ain’t mad at you. I just don’t want you to get hurt,” this tells us that he really cares about his feelings and doesn’t want any harm done to him. He continues with, “You don’t know what a few months in jail can do to you.” He cared about what would happen to Johnny, he didn’t want him to end up like the uncaring side of Dally. Indirectly, he mentioned caring about him, he didn’t want Johnny to end up like him if he turned himself in to the police. This proves that Dally has a caring side to

Even the younger boys like Soda and Pony are much more sensitive in nature but still eager to prove themselves in the “rumble” towards the end of the novel. Physical combat seems to carry weight similar to ancient rites of passage, you were only considered a man if you could best another in a trial by arms or “lick” someone as the boys of the 1960’s would say. This is an important distinction to notice and deserves further inspection. Even with the loss of their biological parents to death, alcoholism, marital strife or pure apathy, these boys take care of one another with each older generation raising the younger, Dally even comments to Johnny about the nature of their relationship when he inquires about whether his parents cared about his well-being, “’My parents… did they ask about me?’ ‘No,’ snapped Dally, they didn’t. Blast it, Johnny, what do they matter? Shoot, my old man don’t give a hang whether I’m in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don’t bother me none.’” (Outsiders 88). Whether Dally is completely aware of the role he plays in Johnny’s life is unclear but it adds all the more weight to the revelation of Johnny’s death; for Dally, this is losing a son. There is a solid argument to make that, in spite of their personal hardships, these boys are far more adjusted to masculinity than their counterparts the “Socs” who seem to be aimless in their pursuit of

Johnny hates fighting most of them all. He will always do the right thing never getting into fights except for when he was jumped. Johnny said to Dally and Pony that fighting is “‘Useless... fighting's no good....”’(148). Johnny was disappointed in them for fighting the soc’s he disagrees with all fighting. Unlike Johnny, Dally loves to fight.Dally is a tough greaser who does not waste anytime creating a problem if he has the opportunity. Dally is always looking to start a problem with the police and other people. The matter of facts, even his friends try their hardest to stay on his friendly side. Ponyboy says of Dallas, “One time, in a dime store, a guy told him to move over at the candy counter. Dally had turned around and belted him so hard it knocked a tooth loose. A complete stranger, too” (24). Dally has a bad temper, and he is not afraid to fight with anyone. Most of the time he will find ways to break laws randomly. Looking up to what I have stated you can tell they are two completely different people at