A Subway Station: Beautiful Filth
An old, rundown, filth ridden subway station. Sounds enjoyable right? Well, to a character of Gilbert Highet, author of Talents and Geniuses and Professor at Columbia University, the answer is actually yes. He describes in his passage “Subway Station,” an unclean subway station that an anonymous narrator has taken the time to observe in great detail. Highet’s audience is the reader, who observes the station closely via the narrator’s description. Highet’s goal is to point out that there is beauty and intrigue in even the most unlikely of places. Through his usage of imagery in conjunction with personification, readers notice the narrator’s marveling tone. Highet uses his tone to guide the audience to his belief of unlikely beauty everywhere.
Highet begins by stating the narrator’s feelings of the subway station when he says he began to “appreciate” and “almost enjoy it.” The word “appreciate” means to recognize the full worth of. Enjoy means to take delight or pleasure in. The words “appreciate” and “enjoy” convey a marveling tone. So right at the beginning, Highet suggests that the subway has value, and he is delighted by it. Confusingly, however, he then goes on to write about his unpleasant surroundings. Highet opens by personifying the subway station, which he continues to do throughout the passage. He talks about the “black mouth” of the subway, and compares it to “an abandoned coal mine.” Highet purposefully chooses the color black because of the archetypal connotations associated with the color. Black stands for death and suffering. Highet uses the color black to reflect the dying nature of the being that is the subway. Next, he writes about paint “peeling like scabs,” further personifying the subway by giving it a body. The use of scabs indicates pain and suffering, and peeling them off, too, sounds painful. Scabs are the final stages of a wound healing, and peeling them off re-opens the wound, restarting the cycle, and preventing healing. The inclusion of this very descriptive image of the paint further damages the reader’s image of this unpleasant subway station. Highet also does not fail to throw in words like “sick” and “leprous,” words associated with illness and suffering. Leprosy is a sickness where skin peels off. Leprosy has a history of deflecting visitors, dating back to biblical times. If the subway is a person, the person is nearing the end of his life. Highet chooses the words “sick” and “leprous” because of their connection to a dying person. Highet then describes lights “coated in filth.” Filth literally means foul condition. The word “filth” has a negative connotation because uncleanliness and impurity are never good in society. A place coated in filth is not one people want to stay and observe like the narrator does, rather one that people want to leave as soon as possible. Highet also describes newspapers that are “mutilated and filthy.” In addition to reminding readers of the uncleanliness of the station, he adds “mutilated.” To mutilate something means to injure, disfigure, or make imperfect by removing or irreparably damaging parts. Highet deliberately chooses this descriptor because of its negative connotations, like almost all his other descriptions of the station. The condition of these newspapers reflect the condition of the subway station; beyond repair, much like the reader’s perception of the station. He could have chosen the words ripped and dirty but he exchanges these for much stronger, negative words; “mutilated and filthy.” The “filth” represents an attempt to cover up the dying station. So then why might the narrator be experiencing excitement and even bliss to be in the unclean and sickly subterranean tunnel? Why is he drawn towards the “leprous” subway that should repel him? Upon taking into consideration why he states two seemingly uncorrelated things, his emotions and the description of his surroundings, readers discover the only reason he does so is because he is fascinated with the station and he treasures it. There is no logical reason the subway, from his own description of it, would be pleasant aside from the fact that he is fascinated by the condition of it. Either the subway is new to him or he never took time to deeply examine it. Highet’s marveling tone – his wondrous excitement towards his unclean surroundings – allows readers to see that beauty is not just the typical flowers and sunsets. He recognizes the value of the station through his comparison of it to an aging, and dying person. He sees that there is beauty in aging and dying and that beauty is anything that influences, changes, or touches a person, making them different and better. The dirty subway does this for him. He is changed by the appreciation of what once was, not focusing on the trash piled on top of the subway station. Thus, his claims that he “enjoys” and “appreciates” the subway are supported.
