By the waters of Babylon

The Setting

The Author:

Stephen Vincent Benet

• The majority of the story occurs at the "Dead Place" where "Everywhere there are the ruins of the high towers of the gods" (41).

• Stephen Vincent Benét was born July 22, 1898, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
• Benet was a novelist, poet, and short story writer.
• Benet's most famous narrative poem "John Brown's Body" (1928) made him win the Pulitzer Prize in 1929.
• Benét died from a heart attack on March 13, 1943, in New York City.

Game Time!

• So if the theme is that war will eventually desolate civilization unless human beings learn to live with one another without resorting to violence to resolve their differences, then why does John describe it as The Great Burning?

What is the resolution of the story?

Citation

- Because this story is told from the first person perspective, we see everything through John's eyes. He does not know about military weapons, so he only describes what he sees. We can derive from his description however that "the Great Burning" was caused by nuclear and chemical weapons that brought fire down upon the world and poisonous gas.

• The resolution of this story occurs when John realizes that the "gods' are not gods at all but just the people who built the city prior to "The Great Burning " (61).

• http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/Babylon.html
• http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/stephen-vincent-ben%C3%A9
• http://www.enotes.com/topics/by-waters-babylon
• http://www.quotecollection.com/author/stephen-vincent-benet/

• Quote: "for then I knew he was a man—I knew then that they had been men, neither gods nor demons... They were men—they went a dark road, but they were men.

What is the tone?

• The tone of this story is both reminiscent and fable in first person point of view.

Who are the characters in this story?

• The first person point of view is evident when the main character, john, uses words like, "I am" and "my father" (2).

• The main character is John, who is a young guy and son of a tribal priest in a post-apocalyptic society. He is a determined and courageous guy.
• John's father is a Priest who conducts the ceremony initiating his son into the tribal priesthood.
• John's Brothers are classified as Hunters.
• The forest people are rivals of the more advanced society in which John lives. John in the story states that he had fought against the Forest People.

By the Waters of Babylon

By Stephen Vincent Benet

What is the theme of the story?

By: Natalie Yan, Olivia Wright, Jevon Jarvis, Jonathan Vasquez, Eric Saucedo,

and Luis Santiago

What is the conflict in the story?

• The theme of the story is avoiding Apocalypse. “By the Waters of Babylon” presents an implied warning that war will eventually desolate civilization unless human beings learn to live with one another without resorting to violence to resolve their differences.

By the Waters of Babylon

• The main character, John, reveals internal and external conflict throughout the story.
• John's internal conflict is his fears while he is trying to figure out if the "Gods" are dead.
• John's external conflict is against real or imagined outside threats, such as a pack of wild dogs and the Hudson River, which almost gets rid of him.

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