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    Jose Fernando Gemperle
    The poem "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka depicts a phone call between a black man searching for housing and a white female landlady. Through their interaction, the poem illustrates the social class distinction and racism of the time period. The landlady, though portrayed as upper class, displays insensitivity by immediately asking "HOW DARK?" the man is without meeting him based solely on knowing his race. While rejecting him solely due to his skin color, the poem highlights how prejudice and racism remain issues today through unfair treatment of people based on social class and skin color.

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    OP3

    Uploaded by

    Jose Fernando Gemperle
    16 views1 page
    The poem "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka depicts a phone call between a black man searching for housing and a white female landlady. Through their interaction, the poem illustrates the social class distinction and racism of the time period. The landlady, though portrayed as upper class, displays insensitivity by immediately asking "HOW DARK?" the man is without meeting him based solely on knowing his race. While rejecting him solely due to his skin color, the poem highlights how prejudice and racism remain issues today through unfair treatment of people based on social class and skin color.

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    The poem "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka depicts a phone call between a black man searching for housing and a white female landlady. Through their interaction, the poem illustrates the social class distinction and racism of the time period. The landlady, though portrayed as upper class, displays insensitivity by immediately asking "HOW DARK?" the man is without meeting him based solely on knowing his race. While rejecting him solely due to his skin color, the poem highlights how prejudice and racism remain issues today through unfair treatment of people based on social class and skin color.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    16 views1 page

    OP3

    Uploaded by

    Jose Fernando Gemperle
    The poem "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka depicts a phone call between a black man searching for housing and a white female landlady. Through their interaction, the poem illustrates the social class distinction and racism of the time period. The landlady, though portrayed as upper class, displays insensitivity by immediately asking "HOW DARK?" the man is without meeting him based solely on knowing his race. While rejecting him solely due to his skin color, the poem highlights how prejudice and racism remain issues today through unfair treatment of people based on social class and skin color.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    Gemperle, Jose Fernando C.

    21st Century Literature

    STEM Mr. Glenn Beleber

    Occasional Paper no. 3

    Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

    (Marxist Approach)

    The poem was written by Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright and poet, and was based on his
    own experience. The story behind this poem is about a telephone conversation between a woman and a
    man. The woman was pictured as a landlady who came from a higher social class and has white color of
    skin, and the man as an African-American who is searching for a house and belongs to black community.

    From the line “Madam, I warned, I hate a wasted journey- I am African”, it is given that the man’s
    color is black for we know that most of Africans are dark, and he prefers not to waste time travelling as if
    the landlady is going to refuse him. Thus, he used a telephone to communicate with her instead. However,
    the lady is described as “lipstick coated, gold rolled cigarette-holder pipped”, just from listening to her
    voice as she speaks to the man. She then disregards all the formalities by asking how dark the man is.
    Therefore, it shows how inconsiderate she is since she assumes that the man’s skin color is black and asks
    directly the question “HOW DARK?” is he without seeing him but knowing that he’s African. Nevertheless,
    despite of the landlady’s insensitiveness, she is continuously portrayed in positive terms, suggesting that
    she is of good breeding and upper class.

    Hence, it depicts the distinction between the two social classes: white community (upper class)
    and black community (lower class). The poem’s message retains universal for us, as it conveys how
    ridiculous the racism and prejudice are, towards our society in today’s world by highlighting the landlady’s
    poor choice of rejecting the man just because of his dark color. Additionally, in this manner, it is simply
    shown that people who belong in white community treat those who are in black unfairly and injudiciously.

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