Telephone Conversation (Sorry for the late post)

1) This poem is full of colours not just that of skin, what do you think these colours signify?

The colours in this poem include black, white and red.

The first two is crudely used by the landlord to ask whether the person she was talking to was African. The final insult came when the landlord asked the African how darks she was. These two colours were also mentioned to show the contrast between the skin tone of the two, which plays a big part in the remarks made by the landlord.

The red colour mentioned in "Red booth", "Red pillar-box"and "Red double tiered" is probably words the African woman spurted out out of shock as her fears and assumption of the discrimination against the black were affirmed by the question asked by the landlord. Perhaps the colour red also signifies the anger of the African woman as she hears what the landlord has said.

2)What does the dialogue in this poem reveal about these two characters?

It strongly brings about the awareness of the reader that the landlord is an extremely racist and shallow person. This can be evidently found in the passage as her tone was rude and crude to the African, "HOW DARK... ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" This cynical question she asks, wanting to know the how black the African lady is, angered her. The African woman is a person who is not afraid to reveal her true identity as an African as seen from the fact that she tells the landlord that she is an African right at the very start. But we can also infer that she is someone who is angered by cynical racist comments, as she starts a "word war" with the landlord and ends it with an insult right smack at the landlord's face.

3) The poet dramatises a battle, who wins finally and why?

In the end, the African woman won the battle, or you can say, word battle. Initially, she was overcame by shock with the rude question asked by the landlord. But as the argument progresses, it begins to lean towards the African women side as she answers the question in a sarcastic way, saying that the colours of the different part of the body are all different, implying that the question is ridiculous. Finally, she ends crudely by asking whether the landlord would want to see the colour of her bottom herself.