Loss Of Innocence In The Outsiders

Patsy Kensit, an actress, once said “Once a child is confronted with the concept of death, there’s a certain innocence that goes.” Kensit means once oneself has familiarized themselves with death, part of one’s innocence is taken away. In the novel, The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny Cade, lose innocence by experiencing death. Hinton proves that losing innocence mentally at a young age has terrible effect through both Ponyboy and Johnny.
Ponyboy’s experiences in life shows the devastating effects of losing innocence at a young age. He has to live without his parents for the rest of his life. As Ponyboy is talking to Randy, a Soc, at his house, he tells Randy, “‘My parents are dead. I live here with just Darry and Soda,
“His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him. He would have run away a million times” (Hinton 11). He has lost his parents, just like Ponyboy, but in a different way. Johnny’s parents don’t care about him. Because they were treating him in a bad way at a young age, he loses his innocence and gets a chance to see the real world as an adult and not the way a child should. Another example of losing innocence is when he kills Bob, a Soc, and Cherry’s girlfriend. Ponyboy describes the scene, when “[Johnny] was sitting next to me, one elbow on his knee, and staring straight ahead. He was a strange greenish-white, and his eyes were huger than I'd ever seen them. A dark pool was growing from [under Bob]... They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you. And they had a blade... they were gonna beat me up’” (Hinton 49-50). He has not experienced murder before the incident, but now he has. Johnny has always been the one getting beat up, and killing someone proves that he has lost his innocence yet
Ponyboy has to live with the knowledge that his parents are dead, making life hard. Johnny has to live with his parents abusing him every time they see him. Ponyboy witnesses Bob’s murder, which is a lot when you are 14; and Johnny was the murderer. Not everybody loses innocence at a young age like Ponyboy and Johnny do, but we can’t let that simple idea tear us down. Patsy Kensit once said, “I am a survivor and not a victim. Life isn’t perfect. When you get a knock, you have to get up, dust yourself down, and get on with