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TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
Wole Soyinka "Telephone Conversation" is a 1963 poem by the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka that satires racism. The poem describes a phone call between a landlady and the speaker, who is black, about renting an apartment. The landlady is pleasant until she learns that the speaker is "African," at which point she demands to know how "light" or "dark" the speaker's skin is. In response, the speaker cleverly mocks the landlady’s ignorance and prejudice, demonstrating that characterizing people by their skin color diminishes their humanity. LINES 1 - 3: "The price…Off premises." It seemed like a good price and the location was fine. The landlady promised that she didn’t live in the building. The only thing left was to confess something important about myself. The price seemed reasonable, location Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived Off premises. It was a good property to rent for 3 reasons:
- The price was reasonable
- The location indifferent - the location did not matter
- The landlady lived off premises - means more privacy LINES 3 - 5: "Nothing remained… I am African." “Ma’am,” I warned the landlady, “I don’t want to waste a trip over there. Just so you know, I’m black.” Nothing remained But self-confession - all that was left to do was to confess. What did he have to confess? He had to 'confess' to the landlady that he was black - as if it were a crime. IRONY : he can't help being black, he was born that way. But he feels that he has to confess, as if it is his fault that he is black. "I hate a wasted journey - I am African." A wasted journey - if he doesn't tell her that he is black before he comes to view the property, and when she sees that he is a black she won't rent the property to him because of racial prejudice. Then he would have wasted a journey.
LINES 6 - 9: "Silence. … caught I was foully." There was silence on the phone. In that silence, I could hear the tension between the landlady's prejudice and her manners. When she finally spoke, she sounded like the kind of person who'd be wearing a thick smear of lipstick and have a long, gold- coated cigarette holder in her mouth. Now I was stuck in a terrible position. Silence. - she did not know how to respond, she was silent on the other side of the line. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. - in the silence that followed his 'confession', he could 'hear' her struggling between racism and good manners. Voice, when it came,… - when she finally answered him. This emphasises how deeply racist she was. It took a long time for her to process the information that he was black, and she did not know how to deal with this information. Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled cigarette-holder pipped. - he describes what he thought she looked like. He describes a woman of a perceived higher social class/ a woman of good breeding. Caught I was foully. - now he was stuck in a bad situation. IRONY: HE was not stuck in a bad position, SHE was. He feels guilty for being black and putting her in a bad position/making her uncomfortable. This shows HIS good breeding and empathy for others. LINE 10 - 12 : "HOW DARK?"….hide-and-speak." “How dark are you?” she asked bluntly. It took me a second to realize that I hadn't misheard her. She repeated, “Are you light skinned or very dark skinned?” It was like she was asking me something as simple as choosing between Button A and Button B on the phone booth: to make a call or to return my coins. I could smell her rancid breath hiding beneath her polite speech. "HOW DARK?" - she is being very rude. I had not misheard - he can't believe what he is hearing. "ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" Button B, Button A. - his race is reduced to status of machine/telephone. She is depreciating (making it of low value) his race as if it was a button he could push to select - Button B, or Button A. Her true class, or lack thereof, is starting to become more and more evident. Stench of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak. - he could hear the ugliness of her voice/ the prejudice against his race over the phone while standing in the public phonebooth (public hide-and-speak). Rancid: unpleasant/old stench: bad smelling
LINES 19 - 21: "You mean … Impersonality." Finally it made sense. I replied: “Are you asking if my skin is the color of regular chocolate or milk chocolate?” Her confirmation was detached and formal, devastating in how thoughtless and impersonal she sounded. "You mean - like plain or milk chocolate" - once again she is depreciating his race. he asks her if he must compare his skin colour to that of plain chocolate or milk chocolate. Her assent was clinical, crushing in it light impersonality. - assent - agree. Yes, that is what she means. Her confirmation was detached ( clinical ) and crushing ( devastating ) in how thoughtless and impersonal ( light impersonality ) she sounded. LINES 21 - 25: "Rapidly…mouthpiece." I quickly changed my tactic and chose an answer: “My skin color is West African sepia.” And then, as an afterthought, I added, “at least it is in my passport.” Then there was silence again, as she imagined all the possible colors I might be referring to. But then her true feelings took over and she spoke harshly into the phone. "West African sepia" - and as an afterthought, "Down in my passport." - he mocks her by saying that his skin colour (on the photo in his passport) is shades of brown. LINES 25 - 27: "WHAT'S THAT?... "Not altogether." “What is that?” she asked, admitting, “I don’t know what that is.” “It’s a brunette color," I told her. “That’s pretty dark, isn’t it?” she asked. “Not entirely,” I replied. She admits her ignorance. We also see that she does not understand what he is saying - this shows that he is intellectually superior to her. LINES 28 - 35: "Facially … see for yourself?'' “My face is brunette, but you should see the rest of my body, ma’am. My palms and the soles of my feet are the color of bleached blond hair. Unfortunately, ma’am, all the friction from sitting down has made my butt as black as a raven. Wait, hang on for a moment ma’am!” I said, sensing that she was about to slam down the phone. “Ma’am,” I begged, “don’t you want to see for yourself?” The man has had enough of her prejudice, bad manners and insensitivity. He uses a mocking, sarcastic tone as he describes his skin colour/race.
Lines 32 - 33: One moment, madam! - sensing her receiver rearing on the thunderclap about my ears - she is about to hang up on him. "Madam," I pleaded, "wouldn't you rather see for yourself?" - rhetorical question - OBVIOUSLY she does not want to see him. “Telephone Conversation” is a poem that satirizes racism. The speaker, who is black, makes fun of a white landlady who won’t rent to the speaker until she knows whether the speaker’s skin is “dark” or “light.” At first the landlady seems ready to move forward with renting to the speaker, even “swearing” that “she lived / Off premises.” She can’t detect the speaker’s race through the phone, a fact that emphasizes a) that the speaker’s identity is comprised of more than his or her race and b) that skin colour is irrelevant to the speaker’s suitability as a tenant. But when the speaker then makes a “self-confession” about being “African,” the conversation abruptly shifts to a discussion of skin tone. Note that the speaker is being ironic in the use of “confession” here, a word typically associated with the revelation of something criminal, to undermine the racist notion that being “African” is a bad thing. Indeed, in response to this “confession” the landlady asks whether the speaker’s skin is “light” or dark”—a question so absurd that the speaker briefly wonders if he or she has “misheard.” Instead of asking what the speaker does professionally, what the speaker's habits are—that is, instead of treating the speaker like an actual human being and potential tenant—the landlady reduces the speaker to a single attribute: skin color. As such, the speaker refuses to answer the landlady’s question directly, instead offering a series of clever replies that reveal the landlady’s question to be not just offensive but also utterly illogical. For instance, the speaker describes him or herself as “West African sepia” (a kind of reddish-brown hue seen in old monochromatic photos) in the speaker's passport, a joke that goes right over the slow-witted landlady’s head; essentially this is like saying, “Well, in a black and white photograph my skin is gray.” The speaker also notes that the human body isn’t just one color: the speaker's face is “brunette,” but the speaker's palms and foot soles are “peroxide blonde.” The speaker is being deliberately tongue-in-cheek in the comparisons here, but the point is that race and identity are far too complex to be reduced to a simple, binary choice between “dark” or “light,” between “Button B” or “Button A.” The speaker doesn’t just criticize the landlady’s blatant racism, then, but also critiques the way she thinks about race itself. In doing so, the speaker refuses to let the complexity of human identity be reduced by the ignorant choice that the landlady offers. For all the speaker’s ingenuity, however, the poem does not end on a triumphant note. As the poem closes, the landlady is about to hang up on the speaker—suggesting that, as a white person, she still holds the power in society to effectively silence the black speaker.
