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Analysis of poem "On the Subway" by Sharon Olds
Analysis of poem "On the Subway" by Sharon Olds
On the subway poem analysis last lines
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On the poem “on the subway” by Sharon Olds. The narrator of this poem is describing how two worlds come together in one single setting. In this poem two different people come into each other where there will be a contrast between both portrait and where I will discuss the insight of the result of the experience by referring to the literary techiniques used such as tone, poetic devices and imagery. The poet contrast, both of this character who are encountered on a subway station by the tone she uses. The tone she uses is like fearful or shameful(negativr) as she is describing the colored man she sees.The narrator is a white woman who has everything in her life and lives in a more stable society class probably rich because she does quote that “how easy this white skin makes my life” making a statement that the fact of being white makes her life easier in comparison to the color man . Futhermore, the colored male does not have any of these things and even scares her because she states that “he has the …show more content…
casual cold look of a mugger”. Another thing, why the tone is negative is that the women use words such as “intentional scars” to describe the man. The tone emphasizes that the boy and she cannot be together because of their color and how they fear of being discovered and feel shameful. Another literary technique that the poet uses is imagery to describe the light and thee dark of both people.
The woman uses words such as “and i am white”, “how easy this white skin makes my life”, and “laced with white” to describe herself and who she is. Also by her stating that she has her life easy from being white can make us an image in our head that she can be one of those rich girls who have everything. On the other hand, we can imagine the boy by the crucial statements she tells about him such as”murderous beams”, “heat sun”, “black sneakers” and “black cotton”.By telling “black sneaker” we an imagine that the boy is wearing black sneakers. Also by “black cotton” and “intentional scars” it can be describing him of being a slave because slaves usually worked on cotton fields and were punished by whipping them and marking them with scars. The use of black and white imagery emphasizes the opposite ends of the spectrum represented by the speaker and the
boy. Furthermore another literary technique the author uses is poetic devices such as simile and metaphor. The women notices that “his feet are hugger, in black sneakers laced with white complex pattern like a set of intentional scars” to emphasize that the woman thinks she is above the boy since the lace are white and its what sustain the black sneaker together. Another simile quote is “the way I am living off his life, eating the steak he does not eat, as if i am taking the food from his mouth” this emphasizes a contrast that the women is from high society eating stake and th fact of him being poor he can not eat such food. The author uses more similes to emphasize a comparison between the African american boy and the white women by giving us a more vivid description of who they are
In this poem, “On the Subway”, written by Sharon Olds brings two worlds into proximity. We will identify the contrast that develops both portraits in the poem and discuss the insights the narrator comes to because of the experience. The author refers to several literary techniques as tone, poetic devices, imagery, and organization. The poem talks about a historical view based on black and white skin. It positions the two worlds the point of view of a black skinned and a white skinned. The boy is described as having a casual cold look for a mugger and alert under the hooded lids. On the other hand, based on his appearance the white skinned person felt threatened by the black boy. She was frightened that he could take her coat, brief case, and
In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
In the book, the readers see the wall between black and white people during the movement. An example is a reaction to Fern’s doll which is white, while Fern, however, is black. On pg.65, it reads, “‘Li’l Sis, are you a white girl or a black girl?’ Fern said, ‘I’m a colored girl.’ He didn’t like the sound of a colored girl,’ He said, ‘Black girl.’ Fern said, ‘Colored.’ ‘Black girl.”
“Immigrants at central station, 1951”, this poem is about the Skrzynecki family waiting to depart on a train at central station to a migrant. The first stanza describes the time and the atmosphere of the where the family were the family is situated. The poem begins by capturing a brief moment in time from the whistle declaring its arrival to the scene of leaving with it. “It was sad to hear the train’s whistle this morning” these words provoke sadness where it usually brings joy. This tell us that the Skrzynecki family were sad due to the fact that they were about to travel to the unknown. “All night it had rained.” The imagery in the first stanza is depressing, the poems tone here is sad. As the poem goes on it says, “But we ate it all” the metaphor here is used for positiveness. No matter how depressed they were they still enjoyed it. The second stanza is about
In Black Boy blacks were treated as less than humans. The whites wanted to be superior in every way and they forced the blacks to follow their rules. In one of the jobs that he had, Wright witnesses how awful his boss treated a customer because she did not pay. “They got out and half dragged and half kicked the woman into the store…later the woman stumbled out, bleeding, crying, holding her stomach her clothing torn.” (Wright, 179) Whites treating blacks like this was normal. When the woman was being mistreated there were whites around, but they did not even look at them because they did not care. There was also a policeman who arrested the woman after she was assaulted Wright was mistreated in many ways because he was black and did not know how to give in to the rules. Because of the way society treated him, Wright became angry and with that anger grew a motivation to become better. He wanted to change the destiny that the whites had set for all blacks. In Separate Pasts McLaurin grew up in the South with blacks around him since he was a child. While there was still segregation in his city, blacks and whites still lived together better than with Wright. McLaurin recalls how he spent so much time with blacks and to him it was normal. “From the fall I entered the seventh grade until I left for college…every working day I talked and
In the story, this group of brownies came from the south suburbs of Atlanta where whites are “…real and existing, but rarely seen...” (p.518). Hence, this group’s impression of whites consisted of what they have seen on TV or shopping malls. As a result, the girls have a narrow view that all whites were wealthy snobs with superiority like “Superman” and people that “shampoo-commercial hair” (p.518). In their eyes “This alone was the reason for envy and hatred” (p 518). So when Arnetta felt “…foreign… (p.529), as a white woman stared at her in a shopping mall you sense where the revenge came from.
I believe that if the reader were to take a deeper look into all of the symbolism in the story, one would find that the summation of all the symbolism is equal to not only the struggle of this black boy, but the struggle of blacks at the time in which the story takes place. I think that if one were to analyze the grandfathers dying words, one would find the view of most conformist black Americans. The only way for a black person to excel at
In the next few chapters she discusses how they were brought up to fear white people. The children in her family were always told that black people who resembled white people would live better in the world. Through her childhood she would learn that some of the benefits or being light in skin would be given to her.
He makes connections between himself and an African woman carrying a vase on her head when he performs a similar action, “My only option was to carry mattress on my head, like an African woman gracefully walking with a vase of water balanced on her head…” This isn’t the only time he makes a reference to African culture: he points out the difficult to pronounce African name of one of the neighbor’s sons and goes on to identify him by said description. When he is shunned, he draws a parallel to American explorers on foreign land, emphasising how much of an outsider he feels himself to be, as quoted above. He even calls himself “pale”, as if his light skin is a negative, unsightly
“…it is said that there are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger…’(hooks 49). This is a quote from an article called ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ written by bell hooks an outstanding black female author. Racism has been a big issue ever since slavery and this paper will examine this article in particular to argue that whiteness has become a symbol of terror of the black imagination. To begin this essay I will summarize the article ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ and discuss the main argument of the article. Furthermore we will also look at how bell hooks uses intersectionality in her work. Intersectionality is looking at one topic and
While underground in Philadelphia’s subway, Ross repeatedly uses word correspondence to establish a narrative rhythm for the reader. Fran Ross critiques different commuters as they struggle to avoid the “irritation, humiliation, irrigation, and syncopation,” caused by the station’s leaky pipes. The vernacular is strongly based on tempo, rhyming and movement through the composition’s emphasis on movement. Furthermore, she stresses the consecutive repetition in the following sentence, stating, “According to the number of drops that fell on the traveler from the Leaky Pipes, he or she was irritated, humiliated or irrigated.” Not only does this establish a friendly narrative voice, it stresses what is at stake for the passengers on the subway. If they take a wrong step, the
Morrison provides the reader with a light-skinned black character whose racist attitudes affect the poorer, darker blacks in the community, especially the main characters, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove. Maureen Peal comes from a rich black family and triggers admiration along with envy in every child at school, including Claudia. Although Maureen is light-skinned, she embodies everything that is considered "white," at least by Claudia's standards: "Patent leather shoes with buckles...fluffy sweaters the color of lemon drops tucked into skirts with pleats... brightly colored knee socks with white borders, a brown ...
The author uses language as a tool to show the characters’ status in society as black or white. Various language techniques are used to display the classes of society. The words “blanker” (used by blacks to describe whites) and “dagger” (used by whites to describe blacks) are used repeatedly throughout the novel. This use of language reflects the intolerant attitudes towards one another in Blackman’s radical world. There is a significant amount of symbolism used in these words. “Blanker” is used to describe a blank, worthless, brainless white person. And “dagger” is used to depict a weapon that is capable of scratching and severing, reducing and disconnecting a person, or even bringing them to an end completely. “ I bet it was one of her blanker friends, they’re blank by name and blank by nature”. Through the difference of educated, formal language used by Crosses and the sometimes tasteless, simple language of the noughts, the reader can see the grades in which noughts and Crosses are separately classed. Through this technique I believe Blackman is trying to show the extent to which racism can affect people. It can lessen, degrade and have heavy social affects on a person proving where they belong and what they will never be.
Through the mood of the words Angelou uses, the reader is able to recognize Marguerite’s dissatisfaction for her black features. For example the narrator states “Wouldn 't they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream… number-two pencil.” The use of the word “ugly” when she describes wanting to wake out of the black dream conveys her association of being black with something unattractive or frightening as a nightmare. Her use of the word “mass” portrays her discontent with how large her kinky hair is. Lastly, the use of the word “too-big” when she is describing a Negro girl tells of her distaste for being larger black girl. These words have a negative connotation and depict an unfavorable outlook of features associated with a black girl. Another example is when she describes a “cruel fairy stepmother” who turned her into a “too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.” The use of the word “cruel” tells the reader that the fairy stepmother cursed her by making her black. Furthermore showing her belief that being black is a