Wole Soyinka what is after the deluge about?

Answer 1

it is mainly about the corrupt govermant in Nigeria.

Once, for a dare,

He filled his heart-shaped swimming pool

With bank notes, high denomination

And fed a pound of caviar to his dog.

The dog was sick; a chartered plane

Flew in replacement for the Persian rug

this verse shows the exteravagant behaviour 'He' has. his attitude of not caring about money/ things most people would consider expensive.

He made a billion yen

Leap from Tokyo to Buenos Aires,

Turn somersaults through Brussels,

New York, Sofia and Johannesburg.

It cracked the bullion market open wide.

Governments fell, coalitions cracked

Insurrection raised its bloody flag

From north to south.

This verse shows how he caused havoc to the international economy and at the same time made money from doing so.

He knew his native land through iron gates,

His sight was radar bowls, his hearing

Electronic beams. For flesh and blood,

Kept company with a brace of Dobermanns.

But - yes - the worthy causes never lacked

His widow's mite, discreetly publicised

This verse shows how he was a stranger to the land he grew up in. he was so paranoid that he needed top security to protect him from his own people. his true only friends were his dogs. He is stingy and over publiced the little good he did do (widows mite, discreetly publicised) this phrase basically says that eh made it come across as if he had very little but was giving away so much, when we know form previous verses that he was actually very well off.

He escaped the lynch days. He survives.

I dreamt I saw him on a village

Water line, a parched land where

Water is a god

That doles its favours by the drop,

And waiting is a way of life.

Rebellion gleamed yet faintly in his eye

Traversing chrome-and-platinum retreats. There,

Hubs of commerce smoothly turn without

His bidding, and cities where he lately roosted

Have forgotten him, the preying bird

Of passage.

this verse shows: the dream he has shows him in poverty and now one of the populatiojn, no longer special like he once was. even at that state, he still dreamt of rebelling. everyone he used to be with have forgotten about him and he is no longer important.

They let him live, but not from pity

Or human sufferance. He scratches life

From earth, no worse a mortal man than the rest.

Far, far away in dreamland splendour,

Creepers twine his gates of bronze relief.

The jade-lined pool is home

To snakes and lizards; they hunt and mate

On crusted algae

this verse shows: how the new people in charge let him survive as they feel it would be a harder punishment rather than death. his once extravegant palace is now abandoned and habited by insects and algae.

hope this is helpful