Have you ever woken up early to watch the sunrise, patiently waiting for the second when everything will unfold? At that precise moment, the sky turns into a spectacular display of colors, while the sun emerges from the darkness, bringing in the new day. But before you can truly realize the profound beauty of what you have witnessed, the world has moved on, and the sun’s daylight is blindingly bright, yet dull compared with the incomprehensible beauty of what was there before. As beautiful as the sunrise is, it can not last forever. In S.E. Hinton’s realistic fiction novel The Outsiders, the Greasers have to live through loss of their families, friends, and the things they love the most. But they always will have the memories of those …show more content…
In the copy of Gone With the Wind that Johnny leaves for Ponyboy after his death, Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny. Ponyboy has to write an essay for his English teacher and he can not think of anything, as he is still struggling to process everything that has happened. He reads the letter, which he can imagine Johnny saying to him. Johnny writes, “When you’re a kid, everything’s new, dawn. It’s just when you get used to everything that it’s day. Like the way you dig sunsets….I want you to tell Dally to look at one...I don’t think he’s ever really seen one.” Johnny’s words make a huge impact on Ponyboy. In this moment Johnny uses sunsets as a symbol for appreciating life. He helps Ponyboy realize that it really is not being “soft” to appreciate the world around him. And when he tells Pony to have Dally watch a sunset, he doesn’t just mean that literally. He wants Dally to be able to see the beauty in the world, something that he was never able to do. As Ponyboy struggles with the loss of both Johnny and Dally, this helps him to cope. He appreciated Johnny and Dally, both who helped him through tough times and were there for him until the day they died. And as unexpected as it is, Dally turns out to be the one of the golden things in Ponyboy’s life. Johnny’s letter to Ponyboy changes how he view the world around him, even as he deals with