B.A. FIRST YEAR THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY CHAPTER- 14 TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BY WOLE SOYINKA NOTES

WOLE SOYINKA

Wole Soyinka was born in 1935 at Abeokuta near Ibadan in western Nigeria into the family of a teacher and a social worker. Both her parents were Christian. Soyinka connected to primitive African culture and its rich and complex heritage. Soyinka also wrote poetry. In 1960 his involvement with the civil war in Nigeria due to this he got imprisonment. he was the first Black author to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1986

Telephone Conversation ( SUMMARY )

The Telephone Conversation Between Poet And Land Lady Is Told In This Poem. The Poet Is Taking An Apartment For Rent And Before Shifting To That Apartment He Wants To Do All Kinds Of Consolation To The Land Lady. He Talks To The Land Lady Over The Phone. Land Lady Stays Away From The Apartment. This Is An Advantage For The Poet. Because The Poet Lives In Such A Society, There Is Too  Much Racial Discrimination, So He Wanted To Tell The Landlady About His Complexion.

The Poet Tells The Landlady That He Is An  African Origin. The Landlord Stays Silent For A Long Time After That She Says How Dark You Are ? The Poet Feels That He Has Heard Something Wrong. He Says Can You Speak A Little Higher Landlady Again Comes Round How Dark You Are ? The Poet Feels Very Bad On Hearing This And Got Angry. The Poet Says That “West Africa Sepia” Is Written On My Passport Landlady Says I Do Not Understand What Color It Is. He Says It Is Brown Color. Landlady Says It Means Dark Black Landlady Says You Are Full Black Or Half Black, Does Anyone Ever Think What The Landlord Is Trying To Say, Is She Giving Me Options A And B.

Now He Understand What The Landlady Wants To Say, He Tells The Landlady That His Face Is Brown But Her Palms And The Soles Of Her Feet Are White. Before The Woman Hangs Up He Said By Sitting Again And Again, His Wit Is Black. This Is The End Of Poem. In This Poem, We Get To Know How Racial Discrimination Is Spread In The Society And How Much Black People Have To Face Because Of Their Black Color In This Society.