"By the Waters of Babylon" Sig
"By the Waters of Babylon" SignificanceIn the short story "By the Waters of Babylon," by Stephen Vincent Benet, a futuristic form of life and living is presented. The story deals with the cruel realization that man is capable of accomplishing anything, including its own destruction. It portrays today's man as selfish, violent, worried with the materialistic aspects of the world, and full of hate and rage. "By the Waters of Babylon" is the personal recollection of a boy becoming a man who knows nothing of his ancestors. His father is a priest, or high ruler, which the young man, John, aspires to be like. John's father, one of the people in charge of their tribe want to keep the truth of what happened to the civilization before them a secret, so that they do not commit the same mistake again. However, when John starts on his journey to become a priest, the truth seems inevitable. In the story our present civilization has destroyed the earth, as we know it, and nearly wiped out all human beings. The cause of such a great catastrophe seems to be nuclear war. The places where these nuclear bombs landed are referred throughout as the forbidden places or Dead Places. The selfish nature of our society to take more than wha
However, these awful acts are forever forgotten about, and the few that know what really happened stay quiet forever. The great windows overlooking the city, the floor coverings, the soft and deep chairs, and the pictures on the walls demonstrate the greed that our society has for having things that are truly unimportant. As John is describing what the earth was like before it was ruined, he points out the many accomplishments that these gods had achieved. As in the story, "When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know," our world has commenced a stupid race to have the best at everything devouring anything in the way. As Don Marquis once said, "What man calls civilization always results in deserts. t we need, or want more than what we have, are the motives behind countries going to war over such unimportant things as oil and land. Nothing was sacred anymore, and no stone was left unturned for they could command the construction of any crazy project they wanted. At this point in the story, John brutally realizes that these gods were nothing more than men like him, and that because "they had gone down a dark road," and made stupid mistakes their society had been ruined. This great civilization created by these so-called gods, full of knowledge and wisdom, in the end can be reduced to nothing but stones and rubble. He tells him, "Truth is a hard deer to hunt. This brings to mind what John's father tells him when he wants to let everyone know the truth behind their past. In the end it does not matter how much money a person had, what kind of clothes they wore, or where they lived, for everyone is headed for the same fate.
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