ipl-logo

Nothing Gold Can Stay Literary Analysis

758 Words4 Pages

All good things turn bad. One moment everything seems perfect, but in reality it’s all crashing down. Even the best of things can never stay. Throughout the novel The Outsiders, this grueling reality is showcased. In the story the protagonist is Ponyboy. Ponyboy has always grown up around his brothers and their Greaser friends. While growing up they had always envied the Socs: a group of wealthy high class kids, this progressed to fights among them. One night a meaningless fist fight turned bad when Johnny, Ponyboy's friend, murdered a socs out of selfdefense. This lead to both Johnny and Ponyboy having to run away to stay clear of the police. Throughout the story Ponyboy had to face many challenges in order to survive. In Robert Frost’s poem …show more content…

The Outsiders is written in novel while “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is written as a poem. By being a novel, The Outsiders can show its theme numerous time throughout the story. For example in the story Ponyboy and his two best friends Dallas and Johnny get injured in a fire after trying to save children. Hinton describes this moment on page 148, it states, “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” (Hinton, 148). This shows the theme that all good things turn bad. Ponyboy's best friend and only family, because his mom and dad died, got killed. This shows that Johnny the only person that Ponyboy really liked had to die because all good things have to turn bad. Referring back a previous quote in my paper, Hinton also used Ponyboy getting beat up over his possible girlfriend to show the overall theme of the novel. This shows that in The Outsiders the theme is showed in multiple places. Unlike in The Outsiders, Robert Frost showed the overall theme of the poem all at once. To show the theme Frost states, “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” (Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”). This shows that all good things turn bad including the Earth. Even though both The Outsiders and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” share the same theme, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” shows the theme all at once and not several times throughout the

Show More
Related
482 Words | 2 Pages

Ponyboy and his gang are constantly getting into fights with the Socs. This causes Ponyboy to think poorly of all socs. He thinks they are rich kids who have perfect lives. By the end of the book, he realizes that not all SOCS are the same when he meets Cherry and Randy. When Cherry treats Ponyboy well and when Randy talks to Ponyboy like he is a human and not anything less, he realizes that not all socs

Read More
408 Words | 2 Pages

In the beginning the book ponyboy grows up hating the Socs. The Socs have have all the power and money and ponyboy hates them for this and also hates them because they are always picking on and fighting greasers. They do this because they think that they they’re better than the greasers. He hates them even more after he gets jumped. “I fought to get

Read More
1534 Words | 7 Pages

They run away to an abandoned church which burns down and Johnny is hurt when saving the kids inside. When Johnny is taken to the hospital, Pony reunites with his brothers, the greasers and the Socs have a huge rumble, he gets to know Randy, and Johnny and Dally die. Throughout the novel, Ponyboy’s views and

Read More
732 Words | 3 Pages

He is the youngest member of the Greasers, who have an ongoing feud with the Socs. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and going to the movie theaters alone. In school, he does exceptionally well academically, but especially on the track team. During the story, Ponyboy changes his point of view on Socs, deals with the aftermath of Bob’s murder, and moves forward from the deaths of his friends. Ponyboy is part of the Greasers, whose rival group is the Socs.

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

Another theme in the story is to never give up. That is a theme because there are many times in the story when the characters need to not give

Read More
865 Words | 4 Pages

Ponyboy and his friends do not get along with another friend group, the Socs. Some of Ponyboy’s friends and himself made some bad choices and it led to bad consequences. That included death, court sessions, and losing some of his best friends. After they settled it with what they call a “rumble”, Ponyboy went back to school and started lacking motivation in all his classes. His English teacher encouraged him to write his English paper on something life-changing, and things began to change.

Read More
751 Words | 4 Pages

A part of the poem that sustains the meaning of “Stay gold” can include, “Her early leaf’s a flower;/ But only do an hour./ Then leaf subsides to leaf.” This piece of “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” includes how quickly a golden moment can last “only so an hour.” This can relate to The Outsiders that shows how quick a golden moment lasts. From the poem, when a golden moment ends, everything goes away like from a flower, “leaf subsides to leaf.”

Read More
923 Words | 4 Pages

However, it is difficult to define what the “night” means to the speaker at the beginning. In this stanza, the narrator walks in the rain and see the city light. The narrator wanders in the night, feeling that he is isolated from the world, despite the fact that he is in the city. The rhyme in the first stanza is obvious because the narrator starts five lines with the same pattern “I have”. Frost uses the first person perspective in order to emphasize the narrator’s loneliness.

Read More
1565 Words | 7 Pages

Most of them tend to have more street smarts than actual academical smarts, while the socs, the group that is higher up and opposes the Greasers, tend to be the other way around. But Ponyboy stands apart from this general way of thinking, unlike his fellow greasers he enjoys reading, running track, and even likes to watch sunsets. He has a heart like no other in this book, or in our world. Throughout the book, he is faced with many unexpected obstacles. Though it is hard on him, he manages to get up, dust himself off, and carry on.

Read More
965 Words | 4 Pages

The movie is portrayed from the greaser’s point of view, specifically focused on the life of the protagonist, Ponyboy Curtis. Ponyboy is a fourteen-year-old boy trying to find his way after the loss of his parents. He invests himself in a sixteen-year-old named Johnny Cade, a kindred spirit who faces similar struggles but by different means. The struggle between the soc’es and the greasers are centered around Ponyboy as well as the connection he and Johnny have.

Read More
930 Words | 4 Pages

Ponyboy can count on his brothers. And on his friends. But not on the much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect--until the night someone takes things too far.” This story is centered around this group of friends who don’t stick together because of fear, but out of love.

Read More
1187 Words | 5 Pages

He hated when his mom ignored him so he would much rather have his dad slap him, than his mother ignore him.(chapter one page 12) Ponyboy struggled with figuring out what and who he wanted to be. He did not understand why being a greaser meant they had to steal things, have greasy hair, and be labeled a greaser. He also did not understand why all of the socs get to have nice things, be rich, are clean, and are labeled a soc. He wished he could just be a normal human without a label.(chapter 9 page 132)The Socs are extremely violent towards the Greasers.

Read More
676 Words | 3 Pages

    One theme you can make from the book and poem is there are marvelous things that don’t stay. This theme relates to the book Outsiders because when Ponyboy and Johnny are on Jay Mountain the mist was silver and gold and Ponyboy said it wouldn’t stay. “The mist was what was pretty…” “ Too bad it couldn’t stay like that all the time.” This text relates to the theme because with

Read More
786 Words | 4 Pages

My theme is hatred from differences and it contributes to The Outsiders because there are a lot of signs of the greaser going to war with the Socs due to hatred. My theme is hatred from differences and it pertains to the story by the fact that the greasers and the Socs are hateful towards each other because of their differences. And an example of hatred from differences is when Pony boy said to himself, “I heard a muttered curse and got slugged again, and they were stuffing a handkerchief in my mouth. This shows hatred from

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

To me the best theme in the story is friendship. I believe that every person needs to show friendship to

Read More

More about Nothing Gold Can Stay Literary Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document