Essay #4 “On the Subway” is about the complex connection between whites and blacks. In the first stanza the author shows an account that compares a black person with a white person (lines 1-13). And then in the second stanza the author starts to show the obvious inconsistencies so that inter relationships surface. In the third stanza the author gives insight on to how the scene is parallel to American culture on a larger scale.

Olds uses imagery to show the significant difference between the black boy (the observed), the white woman (the narrator) and the observer as they all sit in the same subway. The main focus of the stanza is his sneakers that are black “laced with white”. The white woman describes the white laces as “intentional scars”. These “scars” are supposed to show the reader the discrimination of blacks by white society. The use of the word intentional shows the reader that the whites intended to harm blacks mentally and physically on purpose. This image compares blacks and whites by saying that whites are powerful and blacks are meant to be compliant. The two characters are on two opposite sides of the train, stuck there, and permanently separated from each other. Next the clothing is describes and is used as another contrasting element. In this image the black boy is “exposed” opposed to the white person who is covered in fur. The image is used to reinforce the opposition.

In the second stanza the tone change…In the first stanza physical descriptions are used to show the reader opposition but in the second stanza puts forward the speakers uneasiness and is more theoretical. The speaker is apprehensive and says that “I don’t know if I am in his power…or if he is in my power” (lines 14-15, 18) this indicates the not so evident boundaries between blacks and whites. Maybe at this time the speaker came to the