Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka
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.”
Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
“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-
“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT” Revelation came
“You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?”
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. 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?”
“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?”
HOW DRAMATIC IS THE POEM THE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION?
Drama is one the genres which is literary composition that tells a story, usually of human conflict, by means of dialogue and action usually performed by actors before live audience. The conflict is most at times resolved as the resolution stage before the play ends. It is normally written in act and scenes.
Poetry is also another genre of literature which takes a different form. It is also characterized by an “economy of words” and outpour of emotions that evokes powerful feelings in the readers. It is usually written in lines with an aesthetic language and also employs imageries.
When a poem loses these initial characteristics and takes on that of the drama, then we can that deduce that the poem is a dramatic poem. Wole Soyinka`s poem Telephone conversation published in 1963 is one of such poems. In this post, we will discuss Wole Sonyinka`s poem as a dramatic poem.
CLICK HERE TO READ SUMMARY AND THEMES IN AMA ATA AIDOO’S CHANGES
Summary of the poem
The poem centres around a conversation between a house-hunting tenant (black ) and a landlady, who rather is interested in the colour of the tenant than relaying more information about the apartment . The tenant confesses to the landlady at the beginning of the poem about his skin colour as he didn’t want to waste any time after the deal about the rent is fixed. The landlady after getting to know his colour becomes silent and what the tenant feared happens. She further probes him more even after becoming a considerate on the price. She still continues to interrogate the tenant about his completion whether he is dark or how very fair. The tenant then uses verbose to play on her ignorance but she finally realizes the tenant is black and hangs up the call. The tenant gets shocked and thinks the land lady should have met him before to confirm his complexion before taking her stands.
How dramatic is the Poem
Firstly, it has a dialogue. A Dialogue is basically a conversation between two or more characters in literary works. It is this conversation that propels the action in the drama to continue. Sometimes a character can relay his or her intention to himself or herself in a form of monologue or soliloquy. The poem is loaded with a dialogue that drives the plot. Although it is somewhat cumbersome, with a careful examination, you can see it has a dialogue with is one of the typical features of drama. The utterances of the man is in small letters and in quotation marks whereas that of the Landlady is in capital letters.
Man: Madam, I hate a wasted journey – I am African.
Landlady: “HOW DARK?”(Pretending not to have heard her…)
ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” -“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT”
Man: “You mean- like plain or milk chocolate? West African sepia” “Down in my passport.”
Landlady: (she is ignorant about the term west African sepia)“WHAT’S THAT?” “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.”
Man: “Like brunette.”
Landlady: “THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?”
Man : “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! (She hangs up)- “Madam,” “wouldn’t you rather See for yourself?”
The above happens to the conversation that took place between the two characters. The white landlady and black man. Any line beyond this is what I call stage direction or indications that throw more light on the action.
Again, it has stage directions or indications of how the events took place. The poet through the first person narrative uses a lot of these to demonstrate how the event took place. This is very typical of drama, no wonder the poet is a renowned dramatist. You can read his Death and the King`s Horseman or The Lion and the jewel to see how he plays with the stage directions. From the above dialogue, any line which wasn’t captured was because it was what I refer to as stage directions or indications or how the event occurred.
“The price seemed reasonable, location Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived Off premises. Nothing remained But self-confession.” This happens to be a monologue of the man who was looking for an apartment to rent. It believed that he had seen an advertisement in a newspaper and that was his reactions before calling the white land lady for clarifications.
“Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came, Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully. Also, shows the white lady`s initial attitude when she first picked the call. This creates a visual imagery which shows that the lady had lipsticks on and smoking at the time of the conversation. All these made him nervous.
“Red pillar-box” also projects a red telephone booth where the speaker made the call. “Button B. Button A.” are controls on the Telephone booth, once you press button A , you continue with the call, if you press B, the call hangs up. This shows that the speaker was at the verge of hanging up the call because of the inhuman nature of the white lady.
“… Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak”. This also shows how the landlady could be a hypocrite by practicing racism in private while it is publicly banned.
“Red double-tiered Omnibus squelching tar.” Describes the intensity of the racism he received from the white land lady. “It was real! Shamed …
“Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification. Gives more information about the action that, he begged for reduction of the price and the white lady but still insisted on whether he is black or white…”Considerate she was, varying the emphasis”
“Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light Impersonality.” shows how rude the lady was during conversation, probably to satisfy her curiosity if she was speaking to a black man. “Rapidly, wave-length adjusted” means the signal was clearer this time around and he could hear clearly
“…and as afterthought.” Means after thinking.
“…Silence for spectroscopic Flight of fancy” illustrates how the landlady was silent and scrutinizing information given to him by the young man “west African Sepia” which means a human being from West Africa. She finally concedes that she isn’t aware of a race like that and it changes her tone “ till truthfulness changed her accent”. She speaks louder “Hard on the mouthpiece “to inquire more through her follow up questions WHAT’S THAT?” “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.”
Furthermore, there is also conflict .Conflict in drama is the disagreement between two or more forces. A character can also be at conflict with his or her thoughts , nature or the society. Conflict is usually solved at the end of the drama, however in the poem, the landlady realizes that the speaker/caller is a black man and hangs up on him because she hates doing business with blacks. The caller was also in dilemma whether to hang or continue with the call as seen in Button B. Button A.
Finally, it also presents a setting where the action takes place. Throughout the poem there was no mention of a particular place where the action. There are indications lines like “ Button B. Button A. Stench ,Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered” depicts a red telephone booth which was very popular on the streets on Britain in 1963 and many developed countries and the cheapest way making of calling. This gives an indication of where the young man placed the call.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ANALYSIS AND THEMES IN SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 1 “SONNET 1: FROM FAIREST CREATURES WE DESIRE INCREASE
To conclude, we can say the poem is dramatic because it has characters, setting, conflict, plot and indications of how the actions took place (stage directions)
REFERENCES
Literary Review: Wole Soyinka’s “Telephone Conversation retrieved from https://etn24.com/2017/11/literary-review-wole-soyinkas-telephone-conversation.html