On The Subway Sharon Olds Analysis

In On The Subway by Sharon Olds the narrator contrasts two worlds to develop both portraits by comparing a white wealthy woman to a African American young man. By doing that she uses imagery by describing the appearance of both characters. Also she uses tone to explain the fear the white woman had because she felt threatened by the black man. He also uses organization to reveal how the white woman changed her mind from the beginning of the poem to the end.

Olds uses imagery for the readers to imagine two different worlds and how one reacts to the other. She does by explaining the appearance of the white woman to convey how she was wealthy for example, “I am wearing old fur. the whole skin of an animal taken and used” and the black boy who looked suspicious by saying “He has or my white eye imagines he had a casual look of mugger, alert under lowered eyelids. He is wearing red, like the inside of the body exposed.” The author shows that the two are completely different and live in two different worlds that is why the white woman feels intimidated. She feels as though since the black man doesn't have what she has he should just take her life or simply steal from her as she says “and I don't know
Then towards the middle she has the power because of her being white life is so much easier for her unlike him being a black man who looks suspicious based on the way he is dressed. Olds also uses organization by describing how the white lady was first scared of the man but then towards the end she starts feeling sorry for him and she also starts to have hope for him. She says “the way I think his own back is being broken, the rod of his soul that at birth was dark and fluid, rich as the heart of a seeding ready to thrust up into any available