Summary Of On The Subway By Sharon Olds

In Sharon Olds’s poem, “On the Subway,” She brings two opposite worlds into close proximity, a young black man and white woman sitting in a vacant subway car by themselves, to provide a contrast between them. She does this through the use of imagery, juxtaposition, and comparison. The two topics she chooses to write about are light vs dark and black vs white. From the beginning of the poem Olds, the narrator, immediately juxtaposes black and white. In the realm of color, white and black are opposite each other, just like the two passengers on this train car. Additionally, both white and black completely void of each other color-wise. However, Olds writes about how the boy’s sneaker are black and laced with white, by this she compares the distinct contrast white and black create when paired together. Olds does this to

Continuing, black and white are contrasted again, but in a racial manner by the way of skin color. Based on history, white people and black people have had their differences, putting it in light terms, that have resulted in many stereotypes today and whenever this poem takes was written. During that time of turmoil, between races, there was a power struggle for whoever wanted to be on top, this is alluded to in lines 13-21. Within these lines comparison of white and black is at its strongest. “I am in his power,” and, “he is in my power,” coupled with what Olds writes about one taking/ living off the others’ life emphasizes the aggression that is suggested to be between them, but remains stagnate. Also, the contrast of their daily lives involved in this comparison creates imagery that gives the read, and narrator, drastically different living conditions. One of them living more affluently than the other: “eating the steak he does not … from his mouth,” show this. Finishing her comparison of black and white, Olds contrasts their own skin colors, black and white. At this