Poem Analysis Of Sharon Olds On The Subway

Sharon Olds brings two worlds into close proximity in her poem, “On the Subway,” giving understanding of the opposite lives her characters lead using tone to portray her character’s innermost feeling, poetic devices like allusion, comparison, and imagery. The writer alludes to the segregation of the black and white during slavery: “We are stuck on opposite sides of the car.” The two characters are the black boy and the white girl who is the narrator speaking in the first person view. According to the writer, these two characters are covered with the same roof (the sky), but breath in different air; one living at the expense of the other. Furthermore, the writer uses comparison to juxtapose the lives of the characters