Written in the first person narrative point of view, the poem
“Telephone Conversation” by Wole Soyinka is a poetic satire against the
widely-spread racism in the modern Western society. The poem is about a
telephone conversation in England between the poetic persona seeking to rent a
house and an English landlady who completely changes her attitude towards him
after he reveals his identity as a black African. The motif of a microcosmic
telephone conversation, therefore, is employed by the poet to apply to a much
broader, macrocosmic level where racial bigotry is ridiculed in a contest of
human intelligence, showcasing the poet’s witticism as well as his ingenious
sense of humor.
The poem starts with a somewhat
peaceful atmosphere befitting the poetic persona’s satisfaction for having
found the correct house - “The price seemed reasonable, location
indifferent.” He was also happy about the privacy that he believed that
he would enjoy, for “The landlady swore she lived / off premises.” At this
stage, we get to know that the two were engaged in a telephone conversation,
which, however, was to come quickly to an unpleasant end as the man decided to
reveal his nationality - “Madam,” I warned. / “I hate a wasted journey – I am
African.” A sudden, unexpected hush of silence is strengthened by a caesura in
line 6 of the poem to emphasize the impact of the African’s race being revealed
to the landlady. Furthermore, the poet’s use of the word “confession” to
describe an announcement of the persona’s ethnic identity is very sarcastic in
that being an African seems to be a sin which the persona committed, and which
he needed to atone for.
An uneasy atmosphere ensues thereby.
Following the caesura, there is “Silenced transmission of / Pressurized good-breeding”,
with the word “silenced” again to reiterate the landlady’s sudden change, as
well as the man’s intuitive sensitivity towards the unfriendliness on the other
end of the phone. There is a foreboding overtone, relevant to the change of the
woman’s attitude she would have towards the African man. And we get the first
indication of the poet’s sense of humor in the expression “pressurized
good-breeding”, too, which is an ironical manifestation of the polite manners
landlady was supposed to have for the job of renting premises. After a
considerable period of silence, the landlady finally spoke again, “Voice,
when it came / Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled / Cigarette-holder
pipped.” It is interesting to note that when the landlady opened her
mouth again, the feeling she gave off is immediately contrastive of what she
was like before, as if her status in society was all of a sudden upgraded,
which is indicated by her voice colorfully and olfactorially described. Such
evocative language, which greatly appeals to our sensory impressions, conveys
the poet’s power of imagination dissecting the sound of an affluent landlady’s
voice. And such use of subtly imagistic language is abundantly rich throughout
the rest of the poem.
Tension rises with the explicitly
racial discrimination in line 10 of the poem as the landlady asked “HOW
DARK?” The poet uses capital letters here, and a lot more to come, to
accentuate the landlady’s effort in seeking clarification for something that
would have been irrelevant to their previous topic, yet it mattered a lot to
her. “I had not misheard”, the persona reflected. Before he was able to
respond, the landlady asked again, “ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” reinforcing
the racist overtone in the English society today. The woman’s pushy,
unequivocal stance in pursuing the answer dumbfounded the man, who was so
confused and so taken aback by the landlady’s sudden change of attitude that he
suddenly appeared to have a blank mind. The automation imagery “Button B.
Button A” that the poet uses here not only vividly shows the man’s temporary
confusion, but also humorously foreshadows the intelligence contest that is to
follow. On a deeper level, the image of the readily available automatic
selection also implies the rampant racial discrimination taken for granted in
the western society.
What makes him come to his senses
from this sudden dumbfoundedness, however, is ironically the foul smell of the
telephone booth, which the persona humorously refers to as a facility of
children’s play. “Stench of rancid breath of public hide-and-seek”
dragged him out from his dream-like world back into reality. The poet
then uses sentence fragments, “Red booth. Red pillar - box. Red
double-tiered / Omnibus squelching tar”, to describe the persona’s frantic
attempt to ascertain the situation. The diction “red”,
which is connotative of terror and disturbance, is used three times to
highlight the extreme mental discomfort of an African man, who referred to city
buses, again humorously, as the idiomatic “omnibus”. Such extensive use of
symbolically chromatic images points out the setting of this poem, for the
first and only time, to be London. Thereby arises the sense of irony as the
place where the persona was facing such ostentatious racism is in London, a city
seen as a symbol of the developed western world, where equality and justice are
supposedly valued above all. “This is real!” the persona’s exclamation only
serves to delineate his bewilderment at the situation.
Instead of describing the
justifiable indignation that the poetic persona was supposed to have felt at
the moment, the poet chooses to characterize him a pacifist, or a humble and
meek man who would rather not stand up to face the situation. The telephone
conversation between the two conservationists continues as the African man
hoped to get on with their previous topic instead of starting a new, awkward
one on a politically sensitive issue – “Shamed / by ill-mannered silence,
surrender / Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.” However, regardless
of his thoughts, the landlady, who was unequivocal in seeking the
clarification, continues to question him, “Considerate she was, varying the
emphasis – “ARE YOU DAARK? OR VERY DARK?” The African man, now probably fuming
with anger inside, remained silent, while the ruthless landlady continued with
her racist inquiry: “You mean – like plain or milk chocolate?” The limited
choice of words as well as the simple object of comparison that the poet uses
to describe the landlady suggests her to be a linguistically impoverished
character despite her affluent economic status. Furthermore, her tone was cold
and bordering on aggressiveness, as is established by the persona’s
interpretation accurately brought forth with clarity and specificity - “Her
assent was clinical, crushing in its light / Impersonality.”
Deciding not to stay silent for any
longer, and as if answering a passport control officer, he replied “West
African Sepia… Down in my passport”, which was then responded with the
landlady’s “silence for spectroscopic/Flight of fancy.” Here, the character of
the poetic persona is seen to undergo a rapid development as
he started to react against the landlady’s racist comments, by first forcing
her into submission with his superior vocabulary. The double alliteration of
“s” and “f” produce a special sound effect, making the atmosphere almost
fearfully spooky, illustrating the mental status of the landlady whose turn it
was now to feel dumbfounded. Also worth noting is the metaphor of spectroscope,
hilariously befitting not only the skin color of the persona, but also the
specific locale of England, where modern science and technology still
inexplicably intermingle with superstition. Either the case, the instant
victory he had over the landlady in this part of the conversation demonstrates
the obvious difference in their education and knowledge, also illustrating the
fact that beyond the landlady’s lavish exterior, she was simply a shallow
judgmental racist.
The contrastive images that the poet
has so far established of the persona of the African origin and the landlady of
the western European society serve to increase the tension in the atmosphere,
precipitating the conflict to its climactic moment. Although the African man
had already provided an answer, the landlady did not understand as she was not
only bigoted, but also definitely under-educated, as compared to the poetic
persona. She continued asking rudely, “…till truthfulness changed her
accent / Hard on the mouthpiece “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding / “DON’T KNOW WHAT
THAT IS.” Paying no attention to the landlady’s disrespect for him, the persona
started to turn the table completely against her, as he took a firm control
over the conversation, defending the dignity and integrity of his ethnic
identity from the ruthless onslaught of the racist landlady. To effectively
show this, the poet juxtaposes various major European hair colors together in a
deliberately confusing manner, suggesting that although being an African, the
persona is nonetheless a person no different from any Europeans – “Facially, I
am brunette, but, madam, you should see / The rest of me. Palm on my
hand, soles of my feet / Are peroxide blond. Friction, caused – / foolishly,
madam – by sitting down, has turned / my bottom raven black – One moment,
Madam!” Sensing the landlady’s “receiver rearing on the thunderclap”, which
indicates the landlady’s slow but finally furious realization that she had been
outwitted, he rushed to ask sarcastically, “Madam …wouldn’t you rather / See
for yourself?” The quasi politeness of the tone the poet uses here can hardly
conceal the ultimate insult, which shows how indignant the man was as he
outwitted her by inviting her to see his bottom, thus ending the poem with a
tremendous sense of humor, apart from the obvious sarcasm.
To conclude, through his poem
“Telephone Conversation”, Soyinka is able to satirize the racist society in the
west. By showing that a dark African persona is eventually capable of
confronting the racial discrimination aimed towards him, and retaliates against
it by outwitting the landlady, the poet sends out a clear message - dark
skinned people are no less intelligent than people that are lighter in skin
color.
