The Theme Of Nothing Gold Can Stay

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“Nature’s first green is gold/Her hardest hue to hold. /Her early leaf’s a flower; /But only so an hour./Then leaf subsides to leaf./So Eden sank to grief,/So dawn goes down to day. /Nothing gold can stay.” This poem,“Nothing Gold Can Stay, ” by Robert Frost was mentioned in the book The Outsiders. This poem shows the theme of the book. The way it does this is that some of the characters died and the poem states the golden leaves on a tree don't last for a long time. The book, The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton is about two rival gangs that are extremely hostile to each other. The gangs’ names are the Greasers and the Socs (pronounced so-ch-es, as in Socials). The main character, whose name is Ponyboy, is also the narrator. He says that the Greasers …show more content…

“My father was only forty when he died and he looked twenty-five and a lot of people thought Darry and Dad were brothers instead of father and son” (Hinton,6-7). This event relates to “Nothing Gold Can Stay” because people are like the gold leaves that are on a tree in the autumn. As the leaves die, so did Ponyboy’s parents. Also, because of the parents being dead, Darry, the oldest brother, was the father figure in Ponyboy's family. The color gold can only stay for so long and then the leaves fall off. This is just one of many reasons in this book that the primary theme is the fact that nothing lasts …show more content…

In the book Johnny died because some timber fell on him when saving children from a burning church. Johnny was basically the emotional one of the greasers and he was the most innocent. The others tried to protect him. “I barely heard him. I came closer and leaned over to hear what he was going to say. "Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold..." The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died. You read about people looking peacefully asleep when they're dead, but they don't. Johnny just looked dead. Like a candle with the flame gone. I tried to say something, but I couldn't make a sound. "Damnit, Johnny..." Dally begged, slamming one fist against the wall, hammering it to make it obey his will. "Oh, damnit, Johnny, don't die, please don't die..."He suddenly bolted through the door and down the hall”(Hinton,126). These quotes shows that when Johnny died, it affected Ponyboy and Dallas a lot. This is the last reason in this essay why nothing lasts forever is the underlying

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