Racism In Wole Soyinka's Telephone Conversation

In Telephone conversation, the poem is about a racist dialog exchange that happened in the 1960 's in Britain. Written in the first person where the tone of the speaker is very subtle mood with the dramatic change from being tranquil to a more sarcastic conversation. The theme of racism that the woman conveyed during the conversation and very stereotypical ideas between the social classes of the speakers. Wole Soyinka also uses other techniques such as Diction to convey her message of racism and lack of communication such as the words of mockery using color "ARE YOU DARK OR VERY LIGHT". She also uses Sibilance, alliterations, and short sentences to intense the reading such as "Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double tiered Omnibus squelching tar". In War photographer by Carol Ann Duffy set in the 1970 's, the context of the poem is about a photographer who faces change in his emotions, when he goes back home from the war 's he feels less involved with his hometown "Rural England". The poem is written in the third person making it feel more detached from the readers with the tone being slightly melodic as the

One of the ways that the writers of the three poems send the difficulties of living in society is by the theme of Communication. In Telephone conversation, there is a great lack of communication as both speakers feel pressurized, to the man it is responding to the question and to the women it is the response and what it might happen, the sounds of sibilance are shown by the poem “Silence transmission of pressurized good-breeding”. The layout of the structure of the poem also shows the change in tone of the conversation as both sides fail to get a good answer or response from each other from a silent and one-sided (the women asking the questions) to a more sarcastic and humorous tone this eventually affects how the readers make of this as being very stereotypical and inept conversation describing how society was during the 1960’s