by Explanation | Summary | Poetic Devices | Main Themes | Class 12| ISC Syllabus | Rhapsody
Short Summary of the Poem
Wole Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation is a powerful poem that exposes the reality of racism through something as ordinary as a phone call. It begins with a Black man searching for a room to rent. He finds an ad that claims there’s “no problem with race,” but since he has faced rejection before, he decides to be upfront.
He calls the landlady and tells her that he is African. The lady goes silent for a moment, and her hesitation shows discomfort. Then, instead of asking about his character or suitability, she asks a shocking question: “Are you light or very dark?” This ridiculous obsession with skin shade highlights her prejudice. The speaker, both frustrated and sarcastic, responds in exaggerated ways—describing himself as “West African sepia,” “brunette by face,” and even joking that his palms and soles are white while his bottom is “raven black.”
Through humour and irony, he turns her question back on her, showing just how absurd and insulting it is to judge someone only by color. Throughout the poem, silence, pauses, and the lady’s tone reveal the hypocrisy of people who claim to be polite and well-bred but secretly hold racist views. The imagery of red buses, tar, and gold cigarette holders further emphasizes the contrast between privilege and discrimination.
In the end, when the speaker pleads for her to meet him in person, she slams the phone down. This proves that her prejudice is stronger than reason. At its core, this poem isn’t just about one phone call. It’s a sharp commentary on racism, hypocrisy, and the struggle to maintain dignity in a world that judges people by skin color rather than humanity.
For a detailed explanation of the poem Telephone Conversation and other poems of class12 ISC Syllabus, go to my channel, Beauty of Language.
Main Themes of the Poem
- Racial Prejudice and Discrimination: This is what the whole poem is based on. The speaker faces prejudice and discrimination because of his colour. He initialy gets a positive response from the landlady but the moment she knows that he is black, her behaviour changes. And, this further triggers a series of questions about his skin tone that reveal her racist assumptions and biases.
- Absurdity of Racial Stereotypes: The poem is a satire on the landlady’s obsession with skin color. She tries to categorize the speaker based on superficial characteristics like dark or light. This emphasizes the absurdity of reducing a person’s identity to as worthless as the colour of their skin.
- Humor and Irony: The poet has used humour and irony for a detailed assessment of the landlady’s prejudice. The speaker’s sarcastic responses and descriptions of his own skin tone, “brunette,” “peroxide blonde,” “raven black”, it adds to the satirical effect.
- The Struggle for Equality: The poem also highlights the bigger fight for equality and the speaker’s wish to be seen as a person, not just judged by his skin color. His final words, “Madam, I pleaded, would you rather see for yourself?” show both his frustration and his deep need to be treated with fairness and honesty, a genuine interaction with her.
- Social Commentary: The poem acts like a social mirror, showing how common racism is in everyday life—especially in things like finding a house or dealing with people. It points out that prejudice isn’t just about one person’s attitude; it’s part of a bigger system that affects people’s chances and opportunities.
Poetic Devices used in the poem Telephone Conversation
1. Enjambment: In Telephone Conversation, Wole Soyinka has used enjambment to capture the speaker’s emotional turmoil during the racist exchange. The lines flow without pause. It mirrors the speaker’s anxiety, urgency, and struggle to express himself. This uninterrupted rhythm, it builds momentum, and shows how quickly he has to respond to the landlady’s intrusive questions about his skin color. At the same time, it highlights his frustration and sense of helplessness, as the ongoing flow of words reflects the continuous and absurd nature of the discrimination he faces.
2. Irony: The exaggerated descriptions of the skin tone by the speaker, comparing it to different types of chocolate and varying shades, are ironic. Because these shades are meant to mock the landlady’s racist assumptions.
3. Symbolism: In this poem, the poet uses symbolism to emphasize the contrast between race and privilege. The color red in the booth, bus, and pillar box, it reflects the speaker’s black identity, set against the “gold-rolled” image of the privileged white elite. The squelching tar symbolizes the racial prejudice deeply rooted in society, while the omnibus, that is meant to serve everyone, ironically represents a system that suppresses people of color. Even the telephone, a simple tool for communication, turns into a stage where there is absurdity of racism. It shows how discrimination seeps deep into day-to-day interactions
4. Satire: In this poem, satire has been used to expose the absurdity of racism. Through ironic dialogue and exaggerated descriptions of his skin tone, the speaker, he very cleverly mocks the landlady’s prejudice and turns the tables on her. His witty responses highlight how ridiculous it is to judge someone by shades of color, while the humorous yet sarcastic tone emphasizes the irrationality of racism. At the same time, the poem reflects deeper themes of prejudice and the struggle to hold onto dignity when faced with such degrading and dehumanizing attitudes.
5. Metaphor: The poetic device where comparisons are made but not clearly stated.
- “Silence for spectroscopic flight of fancy,” shows the landlady’s pause as she imagines the speaker’s skin color. “Spectroscopic” suggests she is absurdly analyzing his shade like a science experiment, exposing her shallow and racist assumptions.
- Comparing skin shades to chocolate: The speaker sarcastically asks if the landlady wants to know if he’s “like plain or milk chocolate?” This metaphor highlights the illogical nature of categorizing human beings based on superficial characteristics like skin color and also highlights how trivialher question is.
- “West African sepia”: It is a subtle metaphor. Sepia is a reddish-brown associated with old photographs. it implies that the landlady’s rigid, color-based understanding of race is outdated and disconnected from the reality of diverse human experiences.
- Describing his body parts in varying colors. These metaphors demonstrate the complex and nuanced reality of human skin tones, defying the simplistic and reductive categories used by the landlady.
About the Poet
Wole(Woye) Soyinka, also known as Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka. He is a Nigerian playwright, poet, and essayist. He is a Nobel laureate who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.
He often writes about themes like oppression, tyranny, and human rights. In his famous poem Telephone Conversation, he highlights racial discrimination. Through this poem, he tries to show how it can creep into even the smallest, everyday situations. What makes the poem special and stand out is Soyinka’s use of humor and irony. While it makes you laugh at first, it also exposes how ridiculous and cruel racism really is. This poem remains one of his most well-known works.
About the Poem:
The poem, written in 1963, Telephone Conversation is exactly what the title suggests—a phone call. It’s between a black man looking for a room to rent and a white landlady who had advertised it. Through this short exchange, the landlady’s hidden racism is exposed.
The poem shows a man calling a landlady after reading an ad that claimed race didn’t matter. Wanting to be honest, he tells her he is Black. Instead of giving a clear reply, she shockingly asks if he is “completely Black” or “half-Black.”
The man tries to explain—his skin is Black but his palms and soles are white. The landlady responds with silence and hangs up, exposing her prejudice.
Through humour and irony, the poem highlights the ugliness of racial discrimination, showing how attitudes—not just laws—need to change. The telephone, meant for connection, becomes the stage for racism and rejection.
It is written in free verse with no rhyme scheme.
Detailed Analysis:
Line 1-5
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. “Madam” , I warned,
“I hate a wasted journey – I am African.”
Explanation:
So the poem starts with the poet describing the ad for the apartment. A black man is looking for a room for rent. He finds an offer in the advertisement. It is at a reasonable price, and the location was not an issue; the landlady also didn’t live there. She lived off-premises, means that she did not live in the same building or the same apartment. Everything was fine and good, only one thing was left, and that was the self-confession. Self-confession means to admit something or state a fact openly. Now, confession about what? Confession about his identity that he was a black man.
So he makes a phone call to the landlady and tells her that he is an African. Instead of wasting time on a journey, he wants to make everything clear before itself. And since he is black, he must have faced some discrimination before also, so this time he just wants to be clear beforehand.
You can notice here that there are no punctuation marks at the end of the lines. So which literary device has been used here? It is Enjambment.
Line 6-9
Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
Explanation:
Now, in these lines, the poet has described the reaction of the lady after she got to know that he was an African. As soon as she comes to know that he is black, she goes silent. She hesitates before responding. This hesitation reveals discomfort.
Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding means that the lady is like the so-called white people of good breeding, good upbringing. She has good manners and etiquette. These people are the ones who call themselves educated and, therefore, decent. But somewhere down the line, they still have this discrimination against blacks. He knew that she was not happy with the fact that he was not white. But then her good upbringing prevented her from reacting immediately to this. So she tried to maintain her composure.
And when she finally spoke, it was lipstick-coated, long gold-rolled cigarette holder pipped. The poet has used vivid imagery here. The man imagines her, how she must have looked as she spoke. He imagines that her lips must be painted red with lipstick, and she must be smoking and using a gold-tinted cigarette holder. Here you can see how the man also forms an assumption about the lady. The poem highlights how individuals, no matter where they come from, they form assumptions based on race.
Caught I was, foully means that the fact that he has mentioned has led the lady to judge him on the basis of his colour. Foully means in an insulting way. So even though she didn’t speak a word, but her silence made him feel judged, vulnerable, and insulted.
Line 10-17
“HOW DARK?”…I had not misheard….”ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar.
It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
Explanation
The landlady is careful not to use the word, ‘black.’ Instead, she asks an indirect question about the degree of darkness, are you light or very dark? The man clarifies that he did not mishear; he did not hear wrong. She ACTUALLY asked him this question. To the black man, it appears as if he is asked to make a choice. He wonders if he should press ‘Button A’, or ‘Button B’ on the telephone dial pad. For example, we are asked to choose in an automated call, ki for English press 1, Hindi me sunne ke liye 2 dabaye. So it was almost like that for him. These lines in the poem expose the hypocritical nature of white individuals in society.
Stench of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak. Stench means bad smell, and rancid means spoiled. So he says that he can smell the bad breath of hypocrisy, the double standards. Hide and speak-since the man is having a conversation over the phone, so he has used hide and speak. It means that white people try to hide their racial discrimination in public, but they practice it in private. The man, he feels angry at this double-standard behaviour. He feels frustrated and is also in disbelief.
He looks around and finds that yes, there is a Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered, Omnibus squelching tar. Squelching means the sound your feet make when you are walking in deep, wet mud. Here it is, tar. The poet has used auditory imagery here. So he was so much in disbelief that he looked around to make sure that this was really happening. And then realized that it was real!
In the line- Red double-tiered, Omnibus squelching tar, it is imagery used, but at the same time a metaphor has also been used, suggesting that the red colour of the omnibus dominates the tar, which is black in colour. The whites dominating the black. In this poem, the color red, a dominant color in the post office and the poet’s dark skin, it is in direct contrast to the fair skin and “gold-rolled” complexion of the landlady and her class. It represents the poet’s blackness in a world that favors white. The tar, associated with the omnibus, represents the racial prejudice and discrimination that are inherent in a racist white society. The omnibus is basically a “horse-drawn carriage” that was invented to serve “all“. It becomes a symbol for the entire racist white society that attempts to suppress or “squelch” the dark tar, that is, the people of colour.
He feels so ashamed by the ill-mannered silence, the silence that was there when he revealed his identity to the woman. Now this silence, followed by the question that she asked, it left him completely dumbfounded, shocked. He was speechless.
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification, means that he was so out of words by the question that he wanted her for further simplification, that what it was that she actually wanted to know. Even though it was a direct question, but he still needed simplification. So he says that the lady, being very considerate, very mindful, she varied the emphasis and asked the question again. The poet has said sarcastically here, Considerate she was.
Line 18-20
“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT” Revelation came
“You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?”
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality.
Explanation
So she asked considerately, that “ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT”. Now, after being considerate, she asks an even more absurd question. She is trying to figure out his colour, referring to the shades of the chocolate. So you can imagine her insensitivity towards these people. The poet here has tried to show how people reduce one to just the colour of their skin. For them, it is not the person of importance, it is the colour of their skin. How dehumanizing it is to do. How superficial it is.
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light Impersonality. She was unaware of its impact on the person she was asking that. For her, it is just about knowing the colour, but for the other person, it is about their complete identity. And this is the reason why she is having a kind of detached conversation. She completely disregards what the speaker is trying to do here.
Line 21-26
Rapidly, wave-length adjusted
I chose. “West African sepia”_ and as afterthought.
“Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness changed her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.”
“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?”
Explanation
Rapidly, wave-length adjusted I chose. Now the poet, he adjusted his wavelength rapidly. Wave-length here doesn’t mean the term in physics. Here, adjusting the wavelength means he tried to get in sync with that lady. Ki chalo thik hai, isey aise nahi samajh aa raha. Ab iska jawab main iske tarike se hi deta hu. So that is what wavelength means here: to get in sync and share the same perspective.
Then he replied, “West African sepia”. Sepia is actually a reddish-brown colour that was associated particularly with black and white photographs of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This description of a specific color, is also a subtle metaphor. Sepia as mentioned a reddish-brown associated with old photographs, it happens to imply that the landlady’s rigid, color-based understanding of race is outdated and disconnected from the reality of diverse human experiences.
And then, as an afterthought, he added, “Down in my passport”– means he looks like that in his passport. And also why does he specifically mention West African Speia, because this shows that he is proud of his identity, the culture, and he is proud of where he comes from. He answers her in a very subtle manner, without getting aggressive, even though he felt bad and ashamed, but in spite of all this, he still maintained his composure and replied to her asserting his identity.
Silence for spectroscopic Flight of fancy- means the lady, after hearing his response, took some time to process it. She tried to understand what he was saying. Spectroscopic means the division of light into different colours. “Silence for spectroscopic flight of fancy” is a metaphor that captures the landlady’s pause after hearing that the speaker is Black. The word “spectroscopic” hints at her treating his skin color like some kind of scientific test, while the “flight of fancy” shows her silly, biased imagination. Together, it humorously points out how she makes shallow and stereotypical assumptions about him based only on his skin color. And then the truthfulness changed her accent.
She asked again, What is that? Conceding means to admit that something is true, although you do not want to. So here she knew that he was black, but still she wanted more information and clarification on the colour. And said “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” Now, to make her understand, he tries to answer in a way she understands. He says, “Like brunette.” Brunette means dark or brown coloured hair. Brunette is basically a white woman with dark hair, and since she was white, so he thought she would be able to understand by the term brunette. So she asks again, “THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?”. Again, this shows further insensitivity of the lady.
Line 27-35
“Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet.
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused-
Foolishly madam- by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black- One moment madam! – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears- “Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?”
Explanation
Then the speaker replies that no ma’am, I am not dark altogether. I am brunette only by face, that only my face is dark. But if you see the rest of me, like the palm of my hand, the soles of my feet, these are all peroxide blonde. Peroxide blonde is again the shade he has mentioned. And he further explains that due to friction caused by sitting down, my bottom has turned raven black. Means it is completely black. Then, as he hears the reciever being put down, he says one moment madam. But it was of no use, the lady had already cut the call.
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap– means that she must have put the receiver angrily, that is why the word thunderclap has been used here. He pleaded with her by the end that she should rather see him herself, that is, in person. So the speaker is trying to be sarcastic, which means that she asked about the level of his dark color. Now, when he is answering it, she couldn’t bear listening to it. Basically, it was the lady who started the absurd conversation by asking how dark he is. And when the speaker stooped to the level of her absurdity, she was no longer able to tolerate it and kept the phone with a thunderclap.
