Telephone Conversation

1. In this poem, the poet has used other colour to represent various things besides the skin colour.

Firstly, the colour red is used. An example is "Red booth.Red Pillar Box.Red double-tiered." All these signify the fury within the African upon hearing the racist question posed by the landlady.As booth and pillar-box can be commonly found in the poem's context, it would show their same sentiments one would feel when asked such questions. These red items are also found worldwide, signifying equality for all. This was used by the author to potray the irony that he was being treated unfairly.

2. It shows that even the landlady is rich, she is not civilised , rude and has no respect for the other ethnic groups at all,that is she's a racist. From "ARE YOU DARK?OR VERY LIGHT ?", it shows the contempt of the landlady who thinks that she is far superior than the poet. This she does by hurling at the poet degarotory questions and remarks. Such remarks also indicate that the landlady has no intelligence at all and judges others by their appearance . On the other hand, the poet may be poor, he is at least civilized, well-mannered and witty too.

3 This is because he is able to deflect the remarks of the landlady swiftly and cleverly,as he asked the landlady to look at his buttocks.He did not stoop to the landlady's level and rebuked whatever insults from the landlady. He also tried to digress from the emphasis of the landlady's speech and also confuse the landlady. " 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" tells us that the poet tries to be sarcastic to the landlady to refute her obsolete racist views.In the end, the landlady was startled for words and lost the battle.