Subway is another word for Stake

    This explication will explore Hilda Morley’s “New York Subway”. The following essay will dissect one of the descriptive lines she uses and explore the direct connotations deriving from the real historical event of a patron Saint, honored by the French nation for her bravery. 

The setting of the poem takes place in a New York Subway train, which I suspect is the F train because we’re told that it had high-school boys from Queens inside. Amongst the passengers, Morley describes a woman as “the girl with her haircut very short and fringed, like Joan at the stake, the corners of her mouth laughing.” She uses literal and metaphorical ideas that are unique to a true event. According to Merriam Webster dictionary, the first known use of the word fringed was in the 15th Century- the same time that Joan of Arc lived.

 The word “fringed” alongside “short” is used to describe her hair- that of the girl in the subway train, but also Joan’s. The word fringed comes from the Old French word: “frenge’ which means fibers or shreds”. For me, this creates the imagery of a girl with short hair and bangs framing her face in a wispy border. 

Although braided hairstyles hanging on either side of the face were the most common hairstyles in medieval France, for a soldier like Joan, unevenly chopped off hair would have been likely to appeal to a more masculine look. This can also indicate that the girl in the subway’s haircut was probably not tailored and perfectly trimmed as well.