Question

What do you infer about the speaker in the poem, Telephone Conversation? Do you feel that the landlady and the speaker could have come to a mutual understanding? Give reasons for your answer in 200 - 250 words.

Answer 1

The speaker of Wole Soyinka’s poetry Telephone Conversation is an African guy who encounters racial discrimination while trying to book a room in a hotel in London. The speaker expresses his annoyance at the landlady’s forceful and discriminatory questioning by changing his tone from polite to sarcastic and aggressive. The speaker gently draws attention to the landlady’s ignorance and insensitivity when she inquires about his race. His use of irony and comedy, especially in response to her inquiries regarding the colour of his skin, implies that he is attempting to both diffuse the situation and draw attention to her discriminatory actions.

If the landlady had been fair and not motivated by racial prejudices, the conversation between the speaker and the landlady might have resulted in a shared understanding. However, the landlady is unable to view the speaker as a person because of her presumptions about him based only on his race. Her response, immediately linking his race to bad traits, shows how strongly rooted her beliefs are. However, the speaker’s answers demonstrate that he is aware of the systemic racism he encounters, but he maintains his composure and sarcasm, indicating that he has learnt to deal with this kind of prejudice.

In the end, the poem shows how deeply rooted racial prejudices can obstruct respectful and productive dialogue. The speaker’s experience highlights how difficult it is to overcome prejudice, particularly when one side is hesitant to acknowledge or face their prejudices. Therefore, even though there was a chance for mutual understanding, it is unlikely due to the landlady’s narrow viewpoint.