Following the rough lives of young, poor boys labeled delinquents, Susan Eloise Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was only fifteen years old! Published when she was seventeen, in 1967, The Outsiders quickly became one of the first representations of young-adult realistic fiction. Taking the pen name S.E., Susan set out to defy gendered stereotypes and expectations with her characters Ponyboy, Johnny, Dally, Darry, Sodapop, and more in The Outsiders. Hinton said she wrote The Outsiders because she wanted something realistic to be written about teenagers, not just another prom or horse story. This inspiration changed lives for decades to come.
In seventh grade, I read The Outsiders in my English class. To put it lightly, it changed my life. It brought me closer to my friends and helped me as I struggled with my own concept of group identity. At thirteen years old, your friends are one of the most important aspects of life. Relating to my friends was one of my top priorities, and this novel explores that theme at length through the analogy of the Greasers vs. the Socs and their class differences. It helped me find solace while I realized my family was consistently undergoing financial issues, just like Ponyboy’s family. My experience with the novel allowed me to have a new experience with literature, analyzing how closely I look at a text and what can jump out at me. Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” plays a major part in this story, and analyzing how the poem was used to make analogies to childhood, youth, and living in The Outsiders was so powerful and impactful to me at thirteen years old.
Now, as a teacher of seventh graders, I am on the other side of the screen—behind the curtain, so to speak—of their interactions with the novel as a whole. I wanted students to stop and reflect on what they interpreted “Nothing Gold Can Stay” to be about, and after finishing the novel, students saw it in a new way. Students made connections with characters that were both plain-as-day to see and those that were not as surface-level. I learned so much more about my students through their interactions with the characters and the content. I loved seeing them fall in love with the characters in the same ways I did when I was their age. Additionally, it hit different hearing, “You’re gold when you’re young, like a kid, like green…” from Johnny while sitting next to my students. I can’t bring myself to think about when they’re not gold and green anymore; nothing gold can truly stay. I am going to miss this group of students so much!
I want to thank this book for not only inspiring me to make literature a career choice but also for bringing me closer to my best friends. I still have the same best friends I did when I read the book nearly ten years ago, and we still talk about The Outsiders like we just read it together yesterday. I also see that some of my students are doing the same thing; one said that she has matching The Outsiders-themed profile pictures with her best friend (can you hear my heart exploding?). One of my students touched on how bias shows itself as physical violence in this story and that, above all, “understanding one another builds empathy, and empathy builds unity across all groups.” They’re baby geniuses, I’m telling y’all! They make me so everlovin’ proud.
Thank you, Susan Eloise Hinton, for creating a timeless world in which every teenager can find themself. There is something in The Outsiders for everyone, and being able to share the joy of this classic with students has been so rewarding. I love being able to see their connections to emotions and social awareness using the content from the novel. I hope they always remember to stay gold; I tell them almost every day!