Empathy In The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton

1001 Words5 Pages

In the novel The Outsiders by S.E Hinton an important character is Johnny Cade. This is because he shows empathy towards others despite being badly abused by his family for his life. Firstly, he stands up to Dally when Dally is harassing two girls who also happen to be Socs. He also runs away but offers to turn himself in so that Ponyboy doesn’t get punished. Finally he dies in hospital after trying to save the children from a fire. Empathy is an important thing for people to learn because we learn to put ourselves in the shoes of other people. It also shows people that there are two sides to every story and not to judge a book by its cover. Johnny standing up to Dally is an important part of the story because it taught us about empathy. …show more content…

After Johnny offers to turn himself in so that Ponyboy doesn’t get into trouble they go back to the church that they are staying at and find it in flames. There were children inside so Johnny and Ponyboy went inside and saved them but while doing so Johnny got hit by a piece of wood on fire. He then dies in hospital. This is shown when Johnny says ““You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There’s still a lot of good in the world.” “Johnny shoved me towards the window ‘Get out!’”These quotes show that Johnny displays empathy because he died just to help a group of kids that he doesn’t even know because he thought that he could’ve been somehow responsible. The reader thinks that he did this almost to make up for the fact that he killed someone in self defence. Also in the second quote he even helps Ponyboy get out of the burning church rather than himself getting to safety. Johnny’s empathy shows that even though people do one thing very bad it doesn’t make them a bad person and they can still display empathy. We, as the reader, think this because Johnny killed a soc but he also saved the lives of many children and his friend sacrificing his own life. Part of the reason we think that he did this is because he felt bad for killing the Soc and wanted to make up for it by helping others, which the reader totally