How does the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” relate to the story told in The Outsiders?
sagetrieb Teacher Doctorate Frost’s short poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” addresses the fragility of nature, that its cycle is such that green leaves do not last forever: “leaf subsides to leaf” (he puns on the second “leaf,” so that it can be read as “leafs leave”) just as “Eden sank to grief,” meaning just as the pleasures of Eden eventually ended and humanity was thrust into the world where suffering exists. This is the fact of life that Pony learns: good things in life don’t last. In its discussion of the novel, Enotes points out that the poem speaks back to the images of sunsets in the story: “Sunsets are short….But it is possible, Pony proves, to remain true to one’s self and thereby ‘stay gold.’” Sources: http://www.enotes.com/outsiders Rate answer: $(‘#aScore-16871’).istars(setAnswerRating); Flag as inappropriate Posted by sagetrieb on Monday November 5, 2007 at 2:40 PM dymatsuoka eNotes Editor Frost’s poem celebrates the purity of life at its beginning (“nature’s first green is g