Wole soyinks “Telephone conversation” is packed with subtleties.

The
puns, irony & sarcasm employed help him to slow this ridiculousness
of racism. “Comment statement drawing reference from the poem

Telephone Conversation’ is a poem written by Wole Soyinka, a renowned African writer in

English. The poem exposes the presence of racial discrimination at the individual level in
society even after the passing of laws against it.

The poem is a conversation between a white woman and a black man over the telephone.
The poet can capture the essence of human interaction across racial differences. This piece
of literature becomes significant as it presents both the attitude of the white woman
towards black people and the black man’s anger towards discrimination.

In 'Telephone Conversation', the poet conveys his disappointment and anger about being
discriminated by the Caucasian unfairly just because he is an African by portraying the
telephone conversation between himself and the British landlady.

The poem is in the form of free verse. It is because 'conversation' isn't something well-
planned; instead, the speakers speak what they want during the conversation. Also, with the
aid of end-stop lines and run-on lines, the outlook of the poem gives readers a sense of
randomly formation, which fully suits the way of telephone conversation ‘flows.

Instead of talking something about the price and things concerning the house renting, the
two speakers talk about their skin colour. This issue was bought up by the landlady at first.
There was a pun, 'indifferent', to shows the intention of the landlady. From the word
'indifferent', the landlady seems not too aware who her house is rented to, however, she
does aware. From what she asks the caller, 'are you light of very dark', she determines not
to rent her house to an Africa, she's obviously discriminating the dark people, which cause
the speaker angry.

It is then the man decides not to rent the house, instead of telling the woman how dark he
is directly, he play word tricks on the woman.

The poet describes the woman 'lipstick coated, long gold-rolled cigarette-holder piped', it
seems that the woman is wealthy and well-educated, it's a bit ironic, from the outlook of
the woman, it seems that the poet want to convey the idea that the woman is good and
'considerate', however, the poet actually want to point out the outlook of a person doesn't
mean anything, the woman is actually arrogant and impolite in the view of the poet.

The most sarcastic point is the woman doesn't understand what the man means when he
says 'sepia' and 'brunette', which both mean very dark in colour. From the words the man
uses, he wants to convey that racism is not fair in the society because the Caucasian judge
the African low class and uneducated only by looking at their appearance, however, he
simply plays the word tricks on the woman, although it's a bit rude, and it show African can
be more educated than the one who is white, this reinforces the point that African deserves
high status in the society, it is not only the white people can take charge over the African.

In the last part of the poem, the poem make use of humour because the woman doesn't
seem to understand what he is talking about, so he asks the woman if she wants to look at
his whole body to see if it is whole black in colour, he especially states 'his bottom is raven
black'. Although the woman wants to suppress her anger and be polite, instead, she can't
stand any longer and she offs the conversation first at last.

The poet thinks there shouldn't have any racism existed, people can't judge other by only
looking from their appearance, instead, they should see and know others fully so as to judge
what kind of people he is.

According to this poem includes a pun that introduces the theme of the following poem and
also informs us that things are not going to be as straightforward as they appear.

Lines 1-2).

"The price seemed reasonable, location / Indifferent"

If we read over these lines quickly, we would assume that the speaker meant "Being neither
good nor bad" by the use of the word indifferent (American Heritage 706). But, indifferent is
also defined as "Characterized by a lack of partiality; unbiased" .This second definition gives
the sentence an entirely different meaning. Instead of the apartment's location being
neither good nor bad, we read that the apartment's location is unbiased and impartial.
However, we quickly learn in the following lines of the poem that the location of the
apartment is the exact opposite of unbiased and impartial. The speaker is rudely denied the
ability to rent the property because of bias towards his skin colour. This opening pun quickly
grabs our attention and suggests that we as readers be on the lookout for more subtle uses
of language that will alter the meaning of the poem.

After this introduction, the speaker begins his

(Line 4).

"Self-confession"

About his skin colour It is ironic that this is called a self-confession since the speaker has
nothing that he should have to confess since he has done nothing wrong. He warns the
landlady that he is African, instead of just informing her.

(Line 9)

"Caught I was, foully"

He says after listening to the silence the landlady had responded with. Again, the word
caught connotes that some wrong had been done, that the speaker was a criminal caught
committing his crime. By making the speaker actually seem sorry for his skin colour, Soyinka
shows how ridiculous it really is for someone to apologize for his race. To modern Western
thinkers, it seems almost comical that anyone should be so submissive when he has
committed no wrongdoing.

The landlady, on the other hand, is described with nothing but positive terms. The speaker
mentions her.

(Lines 7-9)

"Good-breeding,"

"Lipstick coated" voice,

"Long gold-rolled/Cigarette holder,"

All possessions that should make her a respectable lady. These words describing her wealth
are neutral in regard to her personal character, but allow that she could be a good person.
Her goodness is seemingly confirmed later on when the speaker says that she was
"considerate" in rephrasing her question. Her response to the caller's question included
only.

Lines 20-21)

"Light / Impersonality"

Although she was described as being a wealthy woman, she was seemingly considerate and
only slightly impersonal. The speaker seems almost grateful for her demeanour. Of course,
these kind descriptions of the woman are teeming with verbal irony. We know that she is
being very shallowly judgmental even while she is seeming to be so pleasant.

After recording the all-important question, "How dark?" the poem pauses for a moment and
describes the surroundings to give a sense of reality that shows that the ridiculous question
had really been asked (line 10). The speaker describes the buttons in the phone booth, the
foul smell that seems to always coexist with public spaces, and a bus driving by outside. His
description gives us an image of where the speaker is located: a public phone booth,
probably somewhere in the United Kingdom. The "Red booth," "Red pillar-box," and "Red
double-tiered / Omnibus" are all things that one might find in Leeds, the British city in which
Soyinka had been studying prior to writing this poem (lines 13-14). In addition to the literal
images that this description creates, a sense of the anger running through the speaker's
mind is portrayed by the repeated use of the word red. This anaphora is the closest that
that the speaker ever comes to openly showing anger in the poem. Although it is hidden
with seemingly polite language, a glimpse of the speaker's anger appears in this quick pause
in the conversation. In the end, the landlady repeats her question and the speaker is forced
to reveal how dark he is.
Line 23)

"West African sepia,"

He says, citing his passport. She claims not to know what that means. She wants a
quantifiable expression of his darkness. His response, feigning simplicity is that his face is

(Lines 28, 30, 32)

"Brunette," his hands and feet "peroxide blonde" and his bottom "raven black"

He knows that she just wants a measure of his overall skin-color so that she can categorize
him, but he refuses to give it to her. Instead he details the different colours of different
parts of his body. As it was meant to, this greatly annoys the landlady and she hangs up on
him. In closing, he asks the then empty telephone line, "wouldn't you rather / See for
yourself?" (Lines 34-35). The speaker, still playing his ignorance of what the lady was truly
asking, sounds as though he is asking whether the landlady would like to meet him in person
to judge his skin colour for herself. The irony in this question, though, lies in the fact that we
know the speaker is actually referring to his black bottom when he asks the woman if she
wants to see it for herself. Still feigning politeness, the speaker offers to show his backside
to the racist landlady.

Throughout the poem, yet another form of irony is created by the speaker's use of high
diction, which shows his education. Although the landlady refuses to rent an apartment to
him because of his African heritage and the supposed savagery that accompanies it, the
speaker is clearly a well-educated individual. Words like "pipped," "rancid," and
"spectroscopic" are not words that a savage brute would have in his vocabulary. The
speaker's intelligence is further shown through his use of sarcasm and wit in response to the
landlady's questions. Although he pretends politeness the entire time, he includes subtle
meanings in his speech. The fact that a black man could outwit and make a white woman
seem foolish shows the irony in judging people based on their skin colour.

Wole Soyinka's "Telephone Conversation" is packed with subtleties. The puns, irony, and
sarcasm employed help him to show the ridiculousness of racism. The conversation we
observe is comical, as is the entire notion that a man can be judged based on the colour of
his skin.