Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

A)
The poem is full of colours as the poet uses the colours to represent different situations.
In stanza one, “long gold-rolled” tells us the landlady speaking is a Caucasian. This helps to bring on the message of racism as the persona is a black.
In stanza two, the landlady asked the persona of his skin colour. “How dark?”, “Are you dark or very light?” This shows that the landlady’s racism.The poet also described about the "Red booth,Red pillar box,Red double-tiered omnibus" that he might talking on a public phone. The colour red might be used to represent his burning anger regarding his skin colour.
In stanza three,the poet further uses “plain or milk chocolate” to further show how much the landlady wants to know about the persona in greater details.
In the last stanza, the persona said that she is a brunette (brown haired girl) facially but she her palms, soles, are all peroxide blonde (golden).The colours used in the poem shows us how the whites normally judges people by skin colour in the past.In the end the landlady also hung up the phone, telling us that she is not going to rent a room to a black.
B)
In the first stanza, the persona calls to inquire for a flat and he stated straightly that "I hate a wasted journey -I am African" this shows that the persona might have met similar situations before and hoped that the landlady would not reject him just because he is an African and he is black."Silence transmission of pressurized breeding" shows that the landlady is in thought if she should rent a room to the persona.
In the second stanza, the landlady broke the silence by asking "HOW DARK?", "ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" this tells us that the landlady might have wanted to rent a room to the persona but asked for the skin colour instead. This short phrase brings out the message that the landlady judges people by skin colour. The persona seemed shocked .
In the third stanza the landlady asked again "ARE YOU DARK OR VERY LIGHT?" the persona answered "I am a brunette, but madam, you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet are a peroxide blonde" The landlady did not even bother listening as the moment she hears brunette, she does not pay any attention to whatever colour the persona has on his palms or soles.
In conclusion, the persona has met many incidents on this before. The landlady is a white and she just hung up the phone the moment she knew that the persona is a black which shows us that the society at that time is extremely biased towards the blacks.
C) The persona won in the end as he made the landlady hang up the phone with his extensive useof language.