In the book The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, there is a conflict between two Greasers and five Socs. The Greasers are named Ponyboy and Johnny. These boys were hanging with two girls named Cherry and Marcia. These girls are the girlfriends of Bob and Randy who are part of the Socs. During the conflict Bob and Randy come with the 3 other unknown Socs around 2:30. They provoke Johnny and Ponyboy and then they provoke them back which offends the Socs. This is when Bob tells Randy to basically drown Ponyboy which he does in the heat of the conflict Johnny kills Bob. Johnny is justified in what he did and is not guilty because he was protecting Ponyboy. He was protecting himself. He was also terrified from the previous attack from these guys. …show more content…
He protects Ponyboy because the Soc Randy was drowning Ponyboy. It says in the text That Johnny says, “‘I had to. They were drowning you Pony. They might have killed you.”’(Hinton 28) This means that he killed Bob for a reason and that was to protect Ponyboy from his death and it wasn't an intent to kill off of anger from the previous attacking, So this obviously proves that he killed Bob for a reason and that was to protect Ponyboy. The second reason Johnny is innocent is that he was trying to protect himself. He tries to protect himself because they were about to jump and Johnny says in the text that they had switchblades too. In the text it says that Johnny said, “‘And they had a blade… They were gonna beat me up."(Hinton 50). This means that this is self defense because Johnny goes on to say how it was gonna be like before which was clearly a possible death. Making it self defense. Looking at the evidence from reason two, one can see this is self defense. The third and final reason is the the fact that he was terrified what these guy could do to him from what previously happened to him by the same guys. He’s terrified because these guys have almost beaten him to actual death before. In the text it says, “It wasnt that they beat