Prac Crit on Soyinka's "Telephone Conversation"

Soyinka wrote this poem while he was studying at Leeds in England, and the context is significant because he, an African, was in a foreign land, and therefore plagued by much prejudice. To overcome this stigma, he used his poem, “Telephone Conversation”, as a political vehicle to show how racial prejudice has permeated all aspects of daily life, and to show how narrow minded one can be when this form of prejudice is involved in daily life.
The very title of the poem suggests a black person involved in a conversation over the phone, trying to find a place to stay in a foreign country, and we see that he is in a similar predicament to Soyinka’s when he was overseas, both regarding finding a place to stay and at the same time, overcoming the mindset that the westerners, or white people, have against people with black skin. Here, the poem starts off with the narrator considering renting a room, and we see that to him, the “price seemed reasonable, location/Indifferent”. Here, it is important to note the double meaning of the word “indifferent”, meaning both a lack of partiality, and also “neither good or bad”. This pun immediately has the effect of catching the audience’s attention, as well as revealing the narrator to be smart and witty, which will be explained later when more details about the narrator surface. The apartment is also attractive because the “landlady swore she lived/Off premises”, which is a advantage because the apartment the word “swore” reveals that the landlady was desperate to rent out the place, and that she lived off-premises, which, to the narrator, was important because she would not ever see him and realize that he was black. Therefore, to him, “Nothing remained/But self-confession”, showing that the narrator felt it was his duty, and his obligation to show how he was different from everyone else. This is immediately reinforced by the fact that he “warned” her that he was African. The effect of this is instantaneous, and immediately, there is “silence”, which is essentially the “Silenced transmission of/Pressurized good-breeding”, where the landlady is shocked out of her wits by this admission. On the literal level, we realize that the landlady is shocked but trying to be polite by not saying anything insulting. On the other hand, we realize that due to her views, there is pressure on her not to say anything, and that in general, there is a great amount of tension in the situation. Again, “good-breeding” is ironic, because the narrator relates this “good-breeding” to something which exists exclusively in white people who possess a racial prejudice against black people. The use of irony in this instance shows that the landlady may in fact be less polite than what our first impressions of her seem to show.
Finally, when the landlady gathers her wits, we see that “Voice, when it came,/Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled/Cigarette holder pipped.”, which in fact portrays the landlady as someone who possesses a certain amount of positive affluence in Western society. Essentially, Soyinka wants us to see racial prejudice as it is evinced in the woman because he wants us to realize that racial prejudice permeates every level of Western society, from bottom to top. Also, he brings into question the landlady’s moral values, and whether they are respectable or not. From the description of her voice being impersonal and, perhaps, slightly considerate, from the play with words on “Pressurized good-breeding”, we also see that the narrator is initially grateful for her lack of passion against his racial attributes, because he wants to look at the situation as optimistically as possible, and when she has not yet replied, he retains a glimmer of hope that she may not be as racially prejudiced as other people in the country. Again here, however, we see that her “Pressurized good-breeding” is ironic because she talks to the narrator in a judgmental tone below, and this verbal irony again shows the contrast between the landlady, and who she stands for, versus the narrator and who he stands for.
Finally, the narrator is “caught…foully” by her reply, where the word “foully” is use to connote both the “stench/of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak”, and at the same time, reminding the narrator that he is black, and that to white people, this seems foul. In her reply to his admission, the landlady asks “HOW DARK?” (which is essentially the all-important question in the poem), and the narrator is caught unaware by this question. We see that the question is so offending to him that there is an ellipsis to denote a pause or gasp of shock, before he realizes that “[he] had not misheard”, followed by another ellipsis. It is important to note that the narrator, offended as he is by the question, remains silent when the landlady continues- “ARE YOU LIGHT/ OR VERY DARK?” From this continuation of her reply, we can deduce that the capital letters are used to show that the landlady talks like someone who boasts of his or her power in society, but possesses little in reality, because we see that the narrator is able to subtly poke fun at her and outwit her in the latter part of the poem. However, when the narrator hears her reply, he begins to understand the reality of the situation. To him, “Button B, Button A” are similar to different choices because public telephones in England at that time had two buttons, “Button B [and] Button A” which one had to press before making a call. To the narrator, the buttons are like choices in the conversation, which he is able to make, or the various responses he could give to her. Also, the lucid description again shows him that the situation “was real”.
As soon as he recognizes his quandary, he begins to notice the environment, the “Stench/ of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak”, which is essentially a pun on the common phrase “hide and seek”, and reveals this seemingly innocuous conversation to be something akin to that, as if he was playing a verbal hide and seek with the landlady. Also, the fact that the words “stench” and “rancid” are used to describe this activity shows that he is reviled in the western society, and that this stigma is inescapable when faced with racial prejudice. Continuing, he begins to realize the presence of the “Red booth. Red pillar box. Red double-tiered/Omnibus squelching tar”, which are essentially anaphors, or repetitions to represent anger, derived from the colour red. It is also important to note that this is the only moment in which the narrator shows some shred of emotion, and that he is careful to keep his emotions veiled; this is perhaps due to the fact that he keeps his character meticulously shielded so as to prevent the landlady from realizing that he is black, even over the phone. Also, the fact that the omnibus was “squelching tar” shows how western society was oppressing him, because tar, the colour of black, also symbolizes his skin colour, and red, as explained above, his anger.
Stunned by this, the narrator also realises at the same time that both he and the landlady are “shamed/By ill-mannered silence, surrender/Pushed dumbfounded to beg simplification”- him by the fact that he is black, and therefore shamed and surrendering to the fact that he has been identified as a black person, and the landlady being shamed by revealing her prejudice, and also surrendering to the fact that she has prejudice against black people. Continuing, the narrator goes on to say that the landlady is “considerate… varying the emphasis”, which is again ironic, because she wants to quantify her expression of race, which is a very simple-minded view of race, and the irony here can be related back to the previous instance of irony where the narrator described the landlady’s “Pressurized good-breeding”, and which shows him to be subtly poking fun at her supposed superiority to him.
We are able to note that when the landlady says “ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?”, she seems to look at him in a monochromatic fashion, in the mutually exclusive colours of black or white, and to him, “revelation came” of her being a primarily shallow person, and also the fact that she was starting to view his patronage in a unfavourable light. From this point onwards, the narrator seems to realise that his position is one of a lost cause, and he starts to insult her subtly by saying “You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?” Here, plain chocolate and milk chocolate are the same colour, and what is unexpected is her assent, “clinical, crushing in its light/Impersonality”. There is a double meaning on the word “Light”, here, which could additionally mean light in terms of shades, as well as “not serious”. We also see that the narrator has already changed his stance towards the landlady, when his “wave-length adjusted”; again a pun on “wave-length adjusted” meaning that his stance towards her changed, and “wave-length adjusted” also meaning that the truth about his skin colour was clarified in their conversation. Following that, we realise that he chose to be honest by saying “West African Sepia… Down in [his] passport”, and admit his differences, whereas the landlady is forced to admit her ignorance when she asks ““WHAT’S THAT?” conceding/”DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.”” Again the wit of the narrator, expressed thus far by the use of puns and irony in the poem, is contrasted with the narrow mindedness and ignorance of the landlady, who is forced to admit this fact by the narrator’s use of high diction, which the words “sepia” and “spectroscopic” can attest to. Essentially, the entire first stanza introduces the situation, as well as showing us how the narrow mindedness of the landlady causes her to want to categorise the narrator into “LIGHT OR VERY DARK”- to her, there is no “spectroscopic” range of colours except black, bad, and white, good.
In the second stanza, we see that the narrator refuses to give the landlady what she wants- a direct answer to her question. He avoids her probing questions with “Not altogether”, and goes on to mention how his face is “brunette”, and how other parts of him are “a peroxide blond”, and is all mentioned in a somewhat mocking tone. When he refuses to let the landlady quantify him as either dark or light, he starts to feign politeness and even goes so far as to pretend ignorance of what she’s asking for. Here, his diatribe, in addition to the caesuras to feign a dramatic pause, begins to annoy the landlady, and we assume that she finally realises that he is mocking her. When her “receiver rear[s] on the thunderclap/About [the narrator’s] ears”, she is on the verge of putting down the phone, and this shows us that she is, in fact, very shallow, because she probably has not understood anything, or even perceived that he was mocking her, from his reply.
The poem also ends on a comical note, when we see that the narrator “pleaded” with her, while he was in the midst of talking about his “bottom” and before she put down the phone, whether she would “rather/See for [herself]” the narrator’s bottom. This insult is, at the same time, a pun on the last phrase, and also concludes the poem effectively, because we sympathise with the narrator for not being able to complete the transaction successfully.
All in all, the poem emphasizes the narrator’s skin colour and his African descent, as well as to show how the speaker is a well-educated individual. The free verse of the poem contributes to a relaxed mood of conversation and also emphasizes the underlying tension, while the comical tone which the poem is written in serves to make the mood fairly light-hearted. In addition to that, we see that the speaker is, himself, a well-educated individual, and that the scenario of the black and supposedly unintelligent man outwitting the woman shows how wrong people can be in judging by skin colour, in addition to showing how stereotypes as displayed are not always true. As a final note, irony and sarcasm are used with great effect to show the ridiculousness and absurdity of racism, which is an underlying theme throughout the poem, and which has been developed successfully.