Finals: Telephone Conversation Flashcards
Who is the author of Telephone Conversation?
Wole Soyinka
Who are the two characters in the poem?
The speaker/persona
The landlady
What is the purpose of his call?
To rent lodging
It wasn’t mentioned if it was an apartment or a room.
How does the landlady react to the caller?
Initially, she was silent.
She might be wondering how to deal with the situation or maybe she doesn’t want to let the African stay at all.
And then she reconsiders letting him stay depending on how dark or light his skin is.
What does the landlady’s reaction imply about her?
She’s racist.
She judges the person based on the color of his/her skin and considers how it might be shameful to have an African as a client. To make matters worse, she hasn’t seen the client face to face yet.
The speaker has a change of tone: from apologetic to assertive. What does that change indicate?
At first, the speaker was being very considerate, as though he knows that it’s not easy to talk to people like the landlady, especially on the phone.
However, in the latter part, he insists that he and landlady meet so that he won’t be judged solely from the conversation.
Instead of meekly accepting rejection, the persona has decided to put up an effort to fight for his right into having a living space.
Do you think the standards based on complexion is a Western idea? Why or why not?
Yes, because the standards of beauty and power have been set by the conquerors and the mere fact that the conquerors are of white complexion makes them believe that those with fairer complexion have more power over those with dark complexion.
