In “The Cabdriver’s Smile”, Denise Levertov writes about a cabdriver with rather poor customer service skills. The cabdriver does not seem to accept the passenger, even after receiving a very generous tip and is not even pleased when a fellow cabdriver greets him, even though he does not actually know the man. Upon seeing the cabdriver’s license photo, the passenger concludes that this man is hiding “longing and hope”. I do not feel this is necessarily a fair conclusion, especially since she has only seen this man once. For all she knows, the cabdriver is just having a bad day, but otherwise could be a very pleasant man. What about this man’s actions make the passenger extrapolate this one experience out to his entire life?