On The Subway Poem Analysis

A person could have an entirely different life compared to another person by the diverse opportunities given throughout life. Also, children can differ and have different experiences during their childhood depending in which environment they grow up. These settings, including schools and homes, can define the future of the child. They could become the president of America or even a criminal. Even history has shown how people of diverse ethnicities had opposite experiences throughout long years. Many African people were brought to America and worked as slaves while Europeans took advantage of them during the colonization of the New World. The “intentional scars” created during these events lead discrimination to become standardized in the world, …show more content…
The first few lines help the reader imagine the situation clearly: "The young man and I face each other" (1). The reader is also aware that the individuals are sitting in a subway because Olds uses the title “On The Subway”. As a result, the audience can picture immediately the scene of the poem and imagine both the woman and the boy as the first few lines of the poem states. In addition, when the narrator mentions “rod of energy / rapidly moving through darkness” the reader can picture the electric car moving fast through the dark tunnels. These images help emphasize the word subway and imagine the scenery of the …show more content…
Even though the audience doesn’t know who the woman and the boy are, the narrator can show in what situation she is “stuck” in and how she views the boy (4). Being “stuck on the opposite sides” emphasized how the woman was in an enclosed situation in the subway in an uncomfortable place (4). Furthermore, this relationship between the white people being the dominant while the black people are judged by the white. Similarly, the narrator explains how the “black sneakers / laced with white in a complex pattern like a / set of intentional scars.” are scars purposely wounded by white people towards the black people (2-4). The history of comparison in between the white and the black, whites being on the power of the black, has been long lasting, and it is a scar that will never heal at its full potential. A common prejudice made by others about a black person is that most of them are poor. On the other hand, most of the white people are seen as someone rich. The description of what the characters are wearing is another contrasting element. Here, the black boy is “exposed,” while the narrator was covered in fur (11). These images reinforce the opposition between the white woman and the black boy. The descriptions the narrator uses allows the reader to focus in a greater way and picture the situation with