by Dr Ronnie Bai

Created on: June 21, 2010

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 humour.

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 humour in the expression “[p]ressurized 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

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