Different Eyes, Still Golden

 

"I've been thinking about... that poem, that guy [Robert Frost] that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. 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, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be" (Hinton 178).

~S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

Its always interesting to revisit the classics of one's own adolescence, and S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is no exception. In truth, I only fake-read this piece when presented to me in middle school, which had to have been seventh grade. I remember not being able to stand the class I was in, nor the individuals in it. Unlike previous room set-ups, each student was mixed up and placed at a table. This was to encourage a stronger group dynamic, but I still can't shake the image of one of the larger girls bullying me, and forcing her ring into my skin to leave the jewelries indentation on my flesh. I too called the Socs the "socks." Reading really didn't interest me at the time because I was too involved in my own day-dream-like haze just to escape the bondage of my entitlement via F.A.P.E. (Free Appropriate Public Education). I am happy to report that yes, I finally read it, and yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Naturally, any mention of Darry evoked images of the great, late Patrick Swayze from the film... the sad reality of the story is that in the nearly forty-five years since its publication nothing has really changed. Obviously, we don't call ourselves "Greasers" and/or "Socs," but class warfare definitely still exists. Probably more on a minority based skill, but its still here. What also hasn't changed, and we are seeing this a lot with LGBT youth who are continuously being bullied, is that kids are throwing their lives away because they feel worthless and not validated. One of the reasons I love Oprah so much is because she recognizes this, and always says, "You matter." I wish I was there to tell both Dally and Johnny this because they both were a lot alike. They were both fearful, lost, scared, and terribly tragic. Johnny's sacrifice in the end was not an act of redemption, or an eye-for-an-eye... Johnny was protecting Ponyboy, and had nothing to prove. Though I do not agree with killing or violence, I do believe that defense is compulsory and that's exactly what Johnny was executing. 

I think the most amazing part about this tale is the fact that Hinton was still in high school when she wrote it, and her reverence for Frost feels commonplace since she would've been in school when he passed in '63. The story within the story is always the most unique! Its also interesting to go from first reading this story with the eyes of a seventh grader, and now re-reading it with the eyes of an almost-thirty-year-old man. Different eyes, but still golden. 

5/100