Prejudice in Telephone Conversation and Dinner Guest-Me
In the two poems, ‘Telephone Conversation’ and ‘Dinner Guest-Me,’
each poet uses their poetry as a means of confronting and challenging
prejudice. In ‘Telephone Conversation’ by Wole Soyinka, a phone
conversation takes place between an African man and a very artificial
lady about renting out a room. When the lady finds out he is African
she becomes very prejudiced and racist towards him. ‘Dinner Guest-Me’
by Langston Hughes is about a black man going to a dinner party where
he is the only coloured person there, like he is the ‘token black.’
Anger and a sense of humour are shown in both of the poems. In ‘Telephone
Conversation’ the African man is angry at the “peroxide blond” and is
disgusted at her for being so rude and racist towards him, “HOW DARK?
ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” The capital letters emphasises the
loudness in her voice, whereas, in Langston Hughes poem the other
dinner guest are not being prejudiced to the only black dinner guest
directly. Although they would ask him “the usual questions that come
into white mind.” Here they are set apart from him as a different race,
“to be part of a Problem on Park Avenue at eight is not so bad.” He’s
angry because he is still part of the Negro Problem even though he is
with elegant, upper-class people. Hughes is laughing at the white
people complaining about not being black, “I’m so ashamed of being
white,” also at the democratic process and him self. He uses satirical
humour at the dinner party by poking at establishment. He acknowledges
that “I know I am the Negro Problem” and is aware they have to be
polite about him. Wole Soyinka uses sarcastic humour and makes fun of
the landlady when he wr...
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...ws plenty of anger from Wole Soyinka
towards the artifical, white, public. Hughes also seems to be mad at
the white populace and thoroughly benefits from poking fun at them. I
think Soyinka is trying to make a point of the phony and vulgar
individuals there are and draw everyone’s’ attentions to them, Hughes
is trying to make us realise just how obnoxious some can be to
different races, likewise to Soyinka. I believe both poets succeeded,
the poems did make me consider how prejudice many persons are.
In conclusion I prefer ‘Dinner Guest-Me’ by Langston Hughes because I
enjoyed the satirical humour he used in his poem and how he made the
‘token black’ stand out from all the other guests. Although I think
that both use their poetry well as a means of confronting and
challenging prejudice that was around back in the 1900s when the two
poems were written.
• Despite its dark themes, the poem’s colloquial tone in phrases such as “slapped up” and “or something,” abide by comedic conventions.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
he expressed in the following quote from “The Case of the Negro”; “…the idea should not be to
“I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”
What struck me about these two poems in particular is the universal truths they reveal, firstly in “The Eye,” how one learns to hate, and then resent and in “A Poem to my Husband from My Father’s Daughter,” how a woman come to terms with her father’s legacy.
Both poets want to be loved in the poems in their own way. While both poem’s present a theme of love, it is obvious that the poet’s view on love changes from how they view love at the beginning of the poem from how they see it at the end.
He states that Black life still does not seem to matter in America to the point that at time it feels as if the mere existence of Blacks is ignored. He claims that blacks are still readily denied decent education, employment, and opportunities available to their white counterparts and they are harassed, criminalized, incarcerated, animalized and killed due to the color of their skin. There have been several recent incidents strengthening the fact that even in the year 2015, America is still plagued by the evil of racism, presumed racial superiority and
Prejudice, the act of judging someone based on outward appearance or social standing. In the 1960’s Harper Lee wrote a book called To Kill a Mockingbird, about prejudice and how hard the times were. In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many examples of prejudice showing how morally wrong it was. There are several examples of prejudice in the book: Tom Robinson because he is African American, Boo Radley because of his standing in their society, and the Cunningham Family because of how poor they were. The following paragraphs will discuss these examples.
Predjudice and Discrimination as a Part of Our Cognitive Social Being Prejudice and Discrimination are an all to common part of our cognitive social being, but many social psychologists believe that it can be stopped, but only with the help of social conditioning. In this writing I hope to explain and point out some key terms and points made in my assigned chapter. Prejudice refers to a special type of attitude, usually something negative toward any group or ethnicity that is not of one's own social class. Attitude plays a very important role in ones cognitive framework, in that it forces our minds to process information on certain social groups differently making a cognitive earmark for that individual group (stereotypes).
In my opinion, prejudice has a very big impact on society all across the country everyday. I do believe that most people have a tendency to let their preconception of others get in the way of and effect their decisions. People tend to make many decisions based on their own bias beliefs about other people. Prejudice can be called by many things such as bias, racism, sexism, discrimination, and many other different things.
less than friendly to black men, and do not see him as an equal. This becomes
Both poems where written in the Anglo-Saxton era in Old English and later translated into English. As well as both poems being written in the same time period, they are both elegiac poems, meaning they are poignant and mournful.
To conclude, the criticisms of the book The New Negro are mostly distributed by the experience of the author who did not get exposed enough to understand his own race even though he seems to show his
“The Bells,” a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, conveys a cheerful tone through distinct sounds and repetition of words. A deeply onomatopoeic poem, “The Bells” progresses after every stanza. Primarily, the alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia in the poem produce a happy tone; but, towards the end of the poem, the sound devices help establish a gloomier tone. In each stanza, the bells are made of a different metal substance. In the first stanza, the bells are described as silver. In this case, the bells are pleasant, precious, and strong. Moreover, the bells portray the stages in life. The first stanza explains a man’s happy childhood. The golden bells in the second stanza are an example of a man’s love life through marriage. The brazen bells in the third stanza depict the terror of a human’s life through aging, and the iron bells in the fourth stanza show the mourning and death of a human. To fulfill the sense of excitement and happiness throughout the first stanza, Poe uses repeating words and consonants, long vowels, and imitation of sounds. The alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia all contribute to the joyful and merry tone of “The Bells.”