LITERATURE ASSINGMENT:

2) THE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

“The telephone conversation is written by Solynka Wole which portrays that a black man is being judged by his color and not by his status.
Telephone conversation is about an African man who wishes to rent an apartment and so has phoned the landlady to inquire. The poet conveys his disappointment and anger about being discriminated by the lady just because he is an African by portraying the telephone conversation between himself and the British landlady.
Instead of talking something about the price and things concerning the house renting, the two speakers talk about their skin color. This issue was bought up by the landlady at first. There was a pun, indifferent, to shows the intention of the landlady. To enquire first she asks the caller, are you light of very dark, she determines not to rent her house to an African, she’s obviously discriminating the dark people, which cause the speaker angry. It is then the man decides not to rent the house, instead of telling the woman how dark, he plays word tricks on the woman.
The man addresses in phone that, the woman lipstick coated, long gold-rolled cigarette-holder piped, it seems that the woman is wealthy and well-educated, its a bit ironic, the poet actually want to point out the outlook of a person doesn’t mean anything, the woman is actually arrogant and impolite in the view of the man.
The most sarcastic point is the woman doesn’t understand what the man means when he says sepia and brunette, which both mean very dark in color. From the words the man uses, he wants to convey that racism is not fair in the society because the white people judge the African as low class and uneducated only by looking at their appearance, however, he simply plays the word tricks on the woman, although it’s a bit rude, and it show African can be more educated than the one who is white, this highlight the points that African deserves high status in the society, it is not only the white people can take charge over the African.
In the last part of the poem, the poem make use of humor because the white lady doesn’t seem to understand what he is talking about, so he asks the woman if she wants to look at his whole body to see if it is whole black in color, he especially states his bottom is raven black. The woman wanted to control her anger and be polite, but she couldn’t stand any more and she offs the conversation first at last.
The poet thinks there shouldn’t have any racism existed, people can’t judge other by only looking from their appearance, instead, they should see and know others fully so as to judge what kind of people he is.

DEBASMITA.BARDHAN
ROLL NO. 03