Telephone conversation poem analysis. LIT205A: Week 10: Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka 2019-01-30

Telephone Conversation

The first option would obviously shut off all doors to him. The inquiry places two options before him: dark or visible radiation. The varied cultures of each African locality were subsumed by the culture of the country occupying that locality. Also, important in this case is to note how Wole Soyinka uses words dipped in racism to create a memorable impact in the minds of the readers and forces everyone to think about the external world out there which is real and happening. He begins in a seemingly objective, levelheaded way, judging the location and price of the property.

Summary of Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

. The poem is packed with puns, irony and sarcasm. Today: Public payphones in Britain allow callers a number of options standard, text, and email as well as accepting a full range of payment methods, including credit and debit cards. The landlady is drawing a contrast between herself and the speaker of the poem. Internationally recognized for both his writing and his advocacy of democracy and , Soyinka has collected an impressive catalogue of rewards and honors, including the John Whiting Drama Prize 1966 , the for Literature 1986 , and the Award for Humanities 1986.

Poetry Analysis: Wole Soyinka’s “Telephone Conversation”

Here: The price seemed reasonable, location Indifferent. The poet seems to be tired of his life conditioned by racialist biass. Wole Soyinka talks about a serious situation and expresses it in a humorous way, which is not usually done. The immigrant knows That this equation must be sought Not in any woman's arms But in the cream-laid De-Odo-ro-noed limbs Of the native girl herself. His description gives us an image of where the speaker is located: a public phone booth, probably somewhere in the United Kingdom. The subject was the constitution of a absolutism in an African province ; and the corruptible politician.

Essay about The Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

To recognize Soyinka's preoccupation with the racial overtones of language itself is to discover one of the sources of his creative energy. The character appears to talk a little more officially than the landlady and this could possibly be to miss of instruction and understanding towards the landlady or even that she feels the character is ill-defined of the English linguistic communication. Although a short poem of just 16 lines, we instantly understand the power of the setting. We know racism is no joke and can hurt people but this poem made some humor out of it. Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. And the most visible physical marker of this difference is colour. But as he senses that she is about to slam the receiver on him, he struggles one last time to make her reconsider, pleading her to at least see for herself; only to have the phone slammed on him.

Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

The philosopher's stone, the key to turning base metals to gold and a panacea that will ensure longevity and even physical immortality , was satirized by Chaucer and as an illusion. The motif of a microcosmic telephone conversation is employed by the poet to apply to a much broader macrocosmic level where racial bigotry is ridiculed in a contest of human intelligence, also portraying the poet's witticism and his ingenious sense of humor. The sarcastic duologue adds temper to a topic that is otherwise non. It symbolises her perceived affluence and importance. The next most evident use is that of irony.

Telephone Conversation

There is no bitterness in the voice, no sense of urgency in the light criticism, no vision of inhumanity as in the later poems. We can see the level of the racist attitude when they have to include your skin color even in the passport. Jeyifo explores Soyinka's works with regard to the author's sensibilities to the representational ambiguity and linguistic exuberance found in Yoruba culture. According to him, the price seemed reasonable, but because of his dark skin, he had to inform her beforehand. The first option would evidently close off all doors to him. The speaker distances himself from the subject of the poem, describing the immigrant in sarcastic terms. These early poems are different from the later poems, Idanre and Other Poems and A Shuttle in the Crypt, written in Nigeria, and obviously based on the poet's experience of his own culture and the nation's turbulent sociopolitical happenings.

Essay about The Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

Instead, General Ibrahim Babangida, who had ruled the nation for eight years, prohibited the publication of the voting results and installed his deputy, General , as head of the Nigerian state. Soyinka went into expatriate in 1994. There was a teacher named mrs. On November 21, 1991, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Her disinterested approval of the question was like that of a clinical doctor made immune to human emotions through experience.

Summary of Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

In ' Telephone Conversation', the poet conveys his disappointment and anger about being discriminated by the Caucasian unfairly just because he is an African by portraying the telephone conversation between himself and the British landlady. Each one has been educated in a foreign country and returned, hoping to shape Nigeria's destiny. Soyinka explores this is more detail as the caller has to confess to being African American, as if he has done something wrong. Arp, Greg Johnson, and Laurence Perrine, Thomson, 2006, pp. While this immigrant feels he is hurting others, the earlier one feels hurt by a white girl. Most of the time when people describe prejudice ways it is expressed in a negative way with anger and disappointment, but Wole expresses it in a different form, which interests the reader like any other. Voice, when it came, Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled Cigarette-holder pipped.