Why does Sweeney stop caring for Johanna?
He never stops caring for her, but during the song Johanna, he starts to lose more and more interest in their possible encounter. Sweeney is afraid Johanna might resemble Lucy too much or too less. He wants Johanna pale and with yellow hair like Lucy, but in the same time he thinks that if she would resemble his old wife, she would remind him too much of the past and that would hurt him. However, if she wouldn’t look anything like Lucy, he couldn’t associate her image with the face of a beloved one, making her a stranger to him. Practically, there is no good option for Sweeney, so he prefers keeping in his memory the old image of Johanna, the baby girl, unmodified, the way he knew her, not like a grown-up girl. That’s why even though he loves her, he doesn’t want to see her again and focuses on his priority (vengeance) so much, that in the end Sweeney will be blinded by it. Another moment which supports this is when Anthony rushes to his barbershop, telling Sweeney that Turpin has lock
