'On the Subway Essay\r'

'The numbers â€Å"On the subway” by Sharon Olds is a free-verse meter round a white charr and a juvenility black humankind who take place themselves alone with each other on the subway, facing each other from the face-to-face sides of the car. As they maintain each other, the fair sex relates her thoughts just about the situation, which reflect the fear and tautness of living an urban tone. The fact that the teenaged man before her is black is of special(a) significance to her.\r\nShe reflects on the general plight of blacks, and emphasizes the inequality between her and the early days man. virtually of the poem’s intended message, uttered from a socially-aw atomic number 18 perspective, is explicitly stated; although Olds uses symbolization and figurative language, even a misprint take on the poem leave deliver much of her intended meaning. about everyone who reads the poem will be well- have it offn(prenominal) with the issues it takes up, so the poem does non inform, further reminds the ratifier of the woeful imbalance of berth and privilege in society.\r\nIt is only by means of the poem’s title that the reader knows the setting and contextualizes the poem’s dead body; even before body of the poem is read, the title is able to set the disembodied spirit to some degree: the subway is a dark and lonely place, w here people are squeezed together but remain nippy and uninte stick arounded in each other. The woman finds herself alone on the car with a three-year-old black man with the â€Å" occasional cold look of a mugger,” as she puts it.\r\nShe excessively mentions that she wears â€Å"…dark fur, the / whole genuflect of an animal taken and / used…” (11-1), which prefigures her approaching discussion of the propensity of her â€Å"kind,” which is the white race, for taking advantage and stealing the rights of others. This brings her to a retainer of the sonâ₠¬â„¢s possible look towards her, making her contemplate the possibility that the boy would choose to take his vengeance on this member of his white oppressors.\r\nThe speaker’s thoughts revolve around the imbalance of designer in the car, and she contrasts it with the imbalance of originator in society in general. The narrative is communicated from a socially-aware perspective. She speaks of â€Å"… use uping the steak / he does not eat…” (19-20) of â€Å"…how easy this / white skin makes my manner…” (27-28), where â€Å"…without meaning or / trying to I essential profit from his darkness” (22-23). She is here speaking of the prevalent racial inequality that is still very much a part of social reality.\r\nThe narrator is the more(prenominal) â€Å"privileged” side of this temporary dichotomy, although the scattering of privilege sticks obscure in the instruct period of time that they share the piffling space on the car, isolated from the rest of civilization: â€Å"I didn’t know / if I am in his index number” (14-15), â€Å"…or if he is in my power” (18). The two observe each other quietly, without interacting. In this tense situation, she observes how weak she is, and how the young person man is corporally superior to her.\r\nShe is â€Å"… wearing dark fur…” (11), and she points out that â€Å"he could take my coat so well, my / briefcase, my action” (16-17). She observes â€Å"…how easy this / white skin makes my life, this / life he could take so easily… ” (27-29). She is aware that, without the protection of society, she could easily become the oppressed, and he the oppressor. By juxtaposing her concrete physical impotence compared to the boy with what she believes is the general powerlessness of blacks and the weakness of the black identity in the white-dominated world, she creates a striking pseudo-para dox.\r\nThe speaker contrasts her socially-constructed coif of privilege with the boy’s distinct â€Å"privilege” of strength and almost unassailable power over the speaker as long as they are in the car. Here the speaker highlights the irony name in the fact that, although she belongs to the more effectual â€Å"race,” she is temporarily powerless before this young member of the less powerful delegate of society. There is perhaps something objectionable about the speaker’s attitude towards the young man.\r\nShe speaks of his â€Å"casual cold look of a mugger” (8), and of his shirt, which is â€Å"red, like the inside of the body / opened” (10-11), suggesting an association with violence. She immediately associates the young man with urban crime, and gives him too little honorable mention for being a person in his own right, but kind of reduces him to a stamp, to no more than a deputy of the suffering and wickedness of his race. She does not turn on him or his race, however, but instead blames â€Å"…the homicidal beams of the / nation’s heart…” (24-25).\r\nNevertheless, her arch â€Å" sagaciousness” of the boy’s quandary is probably as unwelcome as the oppression that she unintentionally â€Å"inflicts” upon him. Granted, the situation discourages each attempt of either passenger at getting insight into the other’s personality, so she cannot get any deeper appreciation of the young man. Olds uses a simple and beaten(prenominal) situation, which is riding on the subway, as a vehicle for her reflections on the perversities of society. It is an extremely familiar worldview that the poem’s narrator expresses, and thusly there are no base ideas.\r\nThe essence of this poem is nothing that has not been said before by limitless others, but the poem stands out because of the juxtaposition of the two kinds of power that she reflects upon as they observe each other. However, to fully appreciate this poem, it must be realized that the speaker is not to be trusted entirely; she does a disservice to the black race by the method of her approach to the matter. She ignores that fact that the young man is a person and instead renders him into an abstract entity.\r\nThus, the poem provokes a two-fold reprehension of the white race: their oppressiveness, and their tendency to stereotype the oppressed. The heavy realism and simplicity of the poem effectively delivers its message of condemnation for the comprehend oppression of whites by blacks. This message also benefits from the poem’s free-verse form. There is also no explicit pattern and no pretensions in the delivery of the speaker’s thoughts, suggesting the narrative’s unadulterated honesty. finished the poem’s simplicity and directness, what Olds lastly communicates is an attitude of abstract concern for a concrete individual.\r\n'