Question

“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?” Revelation came.
“You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?”
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. “West African sepia”—and as afterthought,
“Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding
“DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.”
“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?” “Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but, madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused—
Foolishly, madam—by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black—One moment, madam!”—sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears—“Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?”
In Wole Soyinka’s “Telephone Conversation”, the man seeking to rent a room responds to the white landlady’s racism by _________ .

• A. describing black as a spectrum as opposed to a single colour
• B. being the subservient Black man, who concedes to her definition of race
• C. locating race squarely in her ways of seeing
• D. fragmenting the racialised body

Hint:

In postcolonial literature, irony and satire are often used as powerful tools to critique and subvert the language and logic of racism and colonialism. Pay close attention to the speaker's tone and word choice.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A, C, D

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
The question asks us to analyze the poetic speaker's response to a racist question from a white landlady in Wole Soyinka's poem "Telephone Conversation". We need to identify the specific strategies the speaker uses to confront and subvert her prejudice.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Let's analyze the speaker's response in the poem and evaluate each option:
(A) describing black as a spectrum as opposed to a single colour:
This is a key strategy the speaker employs. Instead of accepting the landlady's crude binary of "DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?", he offers a series of nuanced and specific shades. He describes himself as "West African sepia," "brunette," his palms and soles as "peroxide blond," and his bottom as "raven black." By doing this, he rejects the monolithic idea of "blackness" and presents it as a complex spectrum, thereby exposing the absurdity of her simplistic racial categorization. This statement is correct.
(B) being the subservient Black man, who concedes to her definition of race:
This is incorrect. The speaker's tone is satirical, witty, and defiant, not subservient. He seizes control of the conversation with his intellectual and sarcastic responses ("You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?"). He does not concede to her definition of race; instead, he systematically dismantles it.
(C) locating race squarely in her ways of seeing:
The speaker consistently frames the issue of his race in terms of the landlady's perception and vision. His final, powerful question, “wouldn’t you rather / See for yourself?”, places the burden of judgment directly on her act of seeing. Throughout the poem, his descriptions force her to visualize him, highlighting that the "problem" is not his skin colour itself, but her prejudiced way of seeing and categorizing people based on it. This statement is correct.
(D) fragmenting the racialised body:
The speaker deconstructs the idea of a uniformly colored "racialised body" by breaking his own body into distinct parts and assigning different colors to them: his face is "brunette," his palms and soles are "peroxide blond," and his bottom is "raven black." This act of fragmentation is a powerful rhetorical device. It shows how ridiculous it is to apply a single racial label to a complex human being. By fragmenting his body, he fragments her racist ideology. This statement is correct.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The speaker responds to the landlady's racism by employing several sophisticated strategies. He describes his skin tone as a complex spectrum (A), he places the responsibility of racial judgment on her perception (C), and he deconstructs her stereotype by fragmenting the racialised body (D). Option (B) is contrary to the defiant tone of the poem. Therefore, options (A), (C), and (D) are the correct analyses of his response.