Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

hollo conversation by Wole Soyinka is about, as the title suggests, a conversation all over the tele visit between two people a West African man and a British land wench. The former was looking for a dwelling to live in London. He felt that the price realisemed reasonable and the locating indifferent in the sense that it was impartial. The landnoblewoman claimed that she lived off premises perhaps indicating that it was a source of income for her. The poem is in free verse and appears like a conversation, like an active telegraphic dialogue.It is a poem that takes the support of liberalinage to put across a point strongly, that is, absurdity of racism. The poet has taken this germinal idea to convey his anger over how society gives undue wideness to a mans touch and not this culture or intellect. The opening lines of the poem introduce the theme which rests on the raillery of the news program indifferent. The teller wants an apartment and in this regard he calls the la ndlady to speak to her. He finds the price reasonable and the location indifferent. Indifferent present possibly indicated impartial to race and colour.The landlady emphatically says that she lives off the premises the apartment is a source of income for her. E rattlingthing seems alright and the speaker feels that he should tell the lady that he is an African. He does this to avoid a wasted journey because he has an apprehension that when the lady sees him she might react negatively and reject him. so there is the need for this self-confession. He has not done any victimize that he should confess yet he seems apologetic. The response to this self-confession is ironically a menacing silence a pause that transmuted good breeding of the lady.She is possibly caught unawares. The African is too shocked and hurt to react immediately and therefore, the heavy silence is broken with questions How dark? and Are you light or very dark? She wants to know the colour of his skin. This was an absurd notion followed by the whites they conception that the lighter shades of the dark-skinned people were better than the darker ones. The speaker is perfectly conscious of the stench of rancid breath of the public booth, its trigger-happy colour, the ruby-red pillar box and the red bus all Red.It is an evocative chain that brings out the reality if the prejudice over against him. The colour red here symbolises the extremity of shock and anger of the African. He is the one looking for acceptance and belonging, and lodging. The colour might also refer to the branding of cattle, where each of them has a red mark on its body that cooks it easier for its master to identify them. The mans silence is an ill-mannered silence eloquently interpreted as bad manners by the landlady. She politely tones down the sharpness of her question however nevertheless seeks to know how dark he is.The poet calling her considerate is an irony because she does not rephrase her question s ensitively and considerately, merely it is considerate as so far she converted the phrases. Revelation came when the African realised that the whites shall never regard the blacks as kind beings as themselves. The African replies in a childish way, resigning himself and simplifying the choices of the landlady. He says, You mean like plain or take out chocolate? All his anguish, pain and anger takes recourse and he forces to see himself through the eyes of the lady.She answers him in infirmity and then, adjusting himself with the wave-length of the white lady, apparently complying with her, he says, West African sepia from down in his passport. This is again an irony, as the African in reality faces rejection in Europe by the whites despite having a passport. This depicts that the colour of the skin is an absurdly important line of reasoning for describing humans according to the whites. The answer of the African does not satisfy the lady and she feigns not to understand whats that? is her question.He replies that it is similar to brunette and she immediately clarifies that thats dark. Now the man has had enough of her insensitiveness. He disregards all constraints of formality and mocks her outright, verbalise that he isnt all black, the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands are completely white, but he is foolish enough to sit on his bottom so it has been rubbed black due to friction. But as he senses that she is about to thrash the receiver on him, he struggles one last time to make her reconsider, pleading her to at least see for herself only to shoot the phone slammed on him.Exasperated by these indifferences he is keen to tell her that but for his cook skin he is like any other normal human being with palm of the hand, soles of his feet a peroxide blond. He realises that she wants the flesh out to be able to categorise him. But the process angers him and provokes him to describe how the bottoms feed black and asks her to judge for he rself. The lady had already sent the receiver upbringing on the thunderclap. She had disconnected. The telephone conversation has concluded but the man has to have the last word. He asks if she wouldnt rather see for herself.