Telephone Conversation

Q1. Firstly, the poet had used the colour red in the poem, saying, "Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered." In this context, the colour red refers to the anger of the persona. He was angry at the fact that he was being racially insulted, this can be seen from, "It was real!" The persona was expecting to be racially insulted, but after he was insulted, he could not digest that fact.

Also, the poet used the simile, "like plain or milk chocolate", this can clearly show that the landlady was being racist, and was discriminating the persona's skin colour being black. But instead of saying directly, black or white, this simile was used to make the racism be shown more clearly by comparing his skin colour to a chocolate which original colour is black.

Lastly, brunette was used, which also means dark-coloured tone. Here, he said that he was brunette facially, however, the colour of his palm and soles were blonde, caused by the friction.

Q2. The dialogue in the poem reveals the personality of the two characters. The landlady can be seen as a white-skinned person, showing racism and discrimination to black people. From the fact that she refused to take in the African. On the other hand, the persona can be described as a polite and calm person, he can also be said to be an intelligent person as he had used his own knowledge to counter the landlady's racism towards him.

Q3. The persona, also know as the African, won the battle. This can be seen from, he had used his knowledge to weigh against and counter the landlady's racism. This caused the landlady to give up on insulting him and she became embarrassed hence she had hung up the phone. Although the persona did not get the place, but he did not allow the landlady to overthrow him with continuous racism.