Summary Of On The Subway By Sharon Olds

In the poem “On The Subway” by Sharon Olds, a woman ponders the life of a black man she sees on the train. First her description is degrading, as she compares his life to her own. She slowly develops insights about the man on the way. Eventually she realizes that she need not be afraid of him, but to feel sorry, for both who she is, and what he has become in her mind. The narrator begins the poem with a description of the setting. She is in a train car with a boy she does not know. First she observes him, as she is trying to gather something about who he is. He is described as having “the casual cold look of a mugger”, a bold choice of words and a blatant insinuation based on his appearance. Her careful imagery here actually sets the tone as well, using the idea of a dark, scary, hooded man to create a dark tone. She does not actively say she is scared of him,

She without thought “profits from his darkness” on a daily basis. She knows she doesn’t have to go through the ridicule that he goes through, the “murderous beams of the nation’s head”, similar to the assumptions she made at the beginning of the poem. Her words “there is no way to know how easy this white skin makes my life” prove that her opinion turns. She realizes her privileges and feels sorry that she has them and he does not.
Her diction and tone change yet again as a result of her sorrow. Her words become deep and metaphorical, almost a little bit suicidal. She states she doesn’t know how easy it is for her, and doesn’t know how hard it is for him. She then reverts back to her original darkness tone, the first “world”. She points out how in fact she does know something, she knows how easily he can take her life, and how she almost understands why it would be this way. Her privilege makes her feel regret for her original thoughts, and in her mind give the boy justification for wanting to mug or harm