Sharon olds in the passage “on the subway” is trying to write the similarities and differences between the way people are with a Caucasian and an African American. Sharon attempts this by using literary techniques like imagery, simile, and tone. Imagery is used to see the differences between a white women and a black boy, the the first part of the passage. The narrator is the white woman and the black boy is the observer; the the shoes that he is wearing are black with “white laces on them”. The speaker describes them as “ scars”. The scars shows the discrimination against the black boy by the white society. Sharon also uses animals as imagery to describe the two characters. She digs down and shows the primitive nature and similarities