Racism In Telephone Conversation, By Wole Soyinka

In the beginning of the poem, the imagery is used to describe the mental image the man has for the woman “lipstick coated, gold rolled cigarette holder piped” (Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka- Starlight- An Anthology of Poetry-Page No.-76) just from listening to her voice he came to know that a woman belongs to higher class. But when he hears her saying how dark he is. He feels so disgusted and angry that he sees red everywhere. The imagery of the bus squelching the black tar symbolizes of how the dominant white community treats those belonging to the minor black one.

The next literary device which the poet uses in his poem is of irony. In the beginning of the poem, the black man made a self confession about his skin color. This indicates that man feels ashamed of his color and sorry for this is ironical in the sense that it throws light how cruel or ridiculous racism is that one should apologize to others for his skin color. The color of the skin is that thing in which a person has no control over it and if he did it is not a bad to be a dark skinned. It seems almost comical that a person is apologizing for that mistake which he has not committed. On

Racism and discrimination is used as powerful weapon to increase fear and hatred in each other’s mind. It will be wrong to say that that racism is not at all present in today’s world. Today the world is talking about feminism, gay and lesbian relationship and in some part of the world they are accepting these changes in the society. But still they are many people in the society who are racist persons and they think that their race is superior to the others. Despite the progressing times, people continue to harbor prejudices and illogical suspicions about the things which they do not understand may be it other ideals, religion, and