Everyone has or will encounter a difficult situation in life where they must deal with the emotional pain of getting over a broken relationship. Both S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and Kesha “Praying” use this human emotion to show how difficult it is to get over an emotional pain, but also to go past that and make peace with yourself. In both stories we learn that When something or someone knock you down you got to get back up.
A common theme in both texts is that dealing with past pain and moving on will make you stronger. In “The Outsiders” For example, Pony boy got jumped by the gangs called the socs, but even though that happened he kept moving forward. Another example is when Pony Boy got attacked at the park he still moved forward and got stronger. An example in Keshas song “Praying” she said “Cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell” It shows that she probably was in a abusive relationship or abusive, she feels pain. She then states “I’m proud of who I am, no more monsters I can breathe again” She gets back up and moves forward stronger than before. In both texts, the characters are negatively affected by relationships with others and want to find inner peace.
Although both texts show how to deal with negative relationships, there are differences between how that theme occurs in the two text. S.E. Hinton the outsiders show negatively dealing with pain, for example when Johnny was getting bullied he retaliated and killed one of the socs member. In Kesha’s song “Praying” she states “Cause I can make it on my own, and I don’t need you, I can make it on my own” It shows that even though she got knocked down she fought through it and did not let anything stop her. She is stronger individual than she was before.
In both “The Outsiders” and “Praying” S.E. Hinton and Kesha articulate the importance of dealing with the pain you endure in life and finding peace within yourself. After studying both the story and the song, readers might conclude that it is up to the person and how they deal with the difficult times; you can either store the pain and hurt people around you, or you can get back up when knocked down and show that you can take it.