By The Waters Of Babylon Analysis

The tone of “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet is ominous. Throughout the entire first paragraph the word forbidden is used at least six times. The word forbidden is often associated with negative outcomes. This gives the reader a feeling of danger which helps to create an ominous tone. Another word Benet uses repeatedly throughout the story is death. On page 4 John states that the place where the Great Burning occurred was the greatest Dead Place they knew. They obviously knew of more than one Dead Place. Calling homes and cities dead places proves that John’s people had a rather dark outlook on life. Also, the words dead places make some readers think of a graveyard, which often brings about an ominous feeling. The ominous

In Richard Matheson's passage, “I Am Legend”, he uses an array of rhetorical devices to emphasize Neville's perspective of his current situation.

(219) Soon enough, John commits suicide because of his hatred for caving in to chastity and having to experience such extreme culture shock within his time of being in this new world. (250) Certainly it shows how little the civilians cared for John when they were entertained by his self-mutilation at the lighthouse; although understandable since they have no sense of remorse or being saddened – they have no feelings at all, really. (246) This is an example of the way things are different between the two worlds: Even though the citizens of the reserves went through pain and suffering like our everyday world does, they were also been given the rights to feel those emotions. They had freedom of expression to act human-like. Being subjected to pain, but also being free to real gratitude is much more rewarding because they’re capable of owning their personal thoughts and feelings and John tremendously wanted that freedom back. Coincidentally, a drug called Soma is given when any feelings of discontent may arise to those of the ‘World State’ and this hallucinogen allows the person to forget all their

Johns suicide at the end of the novel can be seen as his values going against the reality of the world. “through the archway they could see the bottom of the staircase. Jut under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet. It was Mr savage!” this quote shows that the pressure of being the only sane man in the world was too much for john. He conformed. Did what the masses desired. Sacrificed his individuality. Sacrificed his life. Johns individuality encouraged what was seen to be wrong. Encouraged people to go against the masses. Encouraged them to be an individual. And he world state despised john due to the conflict he could have

The novel comes to a hopeless but also very confusing ending. Throughout the novel there was constant foreshadowing of John’s death and it is very evident in chapter 7. Bernard and Lenina, they go to the Savage Reservation and are eventually shown what may seem to a sacrifice ceremony. John the savage immediately after that he enters in the novel, with a very remorse tone repeating, “why couldn’t they have sacrificed me” instead of one of the children in the Reservation. (Huxley 117). John’s death was a statement made against the New World society. John having indulged in what the New World has to

Richard Matheson, the most prominent American author in the horror genre, who published the preeminent horror novel, I Am Legend in 1954, renders Robert Neville as the hero of the novel as he struggles to overcome a constant battle against the vampires and his subconscious mind. At the end of the novel, Robert Neville can be interpreted to finally have the ability to see the world through the perspective of the vampires which, ultimately, leads him to be able to understand them. Matheson reveals the true monster to be not the vampires nor Robert Neville, but prejudice. However, Matheson first establishes a connection between Robert Neville and the audience. This connection allows the message, that prejudice is capable of being the darkest

The walls crumble into dust and debris; you frantically try to put the pieces back into place, try to rebuild the cage in desperation. But it’s already too late, Mr. Monster has escaped. He stretches his legs, licks his lips, and lets out an ear wrenching roar. He wants to hunt. Dan Wells’ I Am Not a Serial Killer has a new and original protagonist whose mind works in ways normal people can’t understand, an interesting plot with a twist that takes the breath away, and a first-person view that takes us into the psyche of a serial-killer-to-be.

Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, takes place in Florida, USA, during a nuclear war between them and the USSR. Much like the small, ancient city of Babylon, the United States of America was destroyed and its citizens, the ones still alive, had the immense task of rebuilding the former superpower nation of the world. Dan Gunn, Fort Repose`s doctor explained to Randy Bragg, our protagonist that “some nations and some people come apart like fat in the pan. Others meet the challenge and harden. [He thought he was going to harden]” (Frank 133). Although he was talking to Randy, the quote applied to him as well. Randy had to figure out how to lead a very scared city that was falling apart and Dan had to treat the many patients without the luxury of having conventional methods available.

“Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald teaches the reader that the past can affect the future. The main character, Charles Wales, is a man who lost the custody of his child due to alcoholism and whose wife has died. The story starts off this his new start, he rarely drinks and is set to be a better person and have his daughter (Honoria) in his life once more. Charles, who is also addressed as Charlie, comes back to the city of Paris where he once has partied and surely the memories of his past are brought up. No matter how much he has believed to have changed, his alcoholic past is a topic sent creating the future he would rather not live in.

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” (Carl Sagan) In “I Am Legend” the main character Robert Neville often tries to escape his reality by having delusions. These delusions are caused by Neville’s inability to fully accept his isolation and inevitable loneliness, causing his mind try and cope with the situation. The coping his mind uses is to have grandiose delusions which often can be linked to existential distress, such as isolation. I will display how Neville’s inability to accept his isolation causes him to develop these grandiose delusions as a way to cope or solve his isolation. Also, it will be shown how these delusions, which normally the want for him to save something, lead Neville to develop a savior complex.

As Noel Carroll states in his essay, The Nature of Horror, horror is one of the genres “in which ideally the emotive responses of the audience run parallel to the emotion of characters” (Carroll 52). It is also true in Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. By showing the protagonist’s tragic experience, the author deftly engenders the audience’s sympathetic emotion to the main character, which initially makes the audience believe the main character will be a hero to heal the world. However, the emergence of Ruth is the turning point of the novel. The relation and difference between Ruth and the main character add doubts on the main character’s humanity, because the main character is living in a world where creatures like Ruth is the predominant type, rather than someone like him who is immune to the plague. The main character initially sees himself as a hero who tries to do biological experiments to save the world. However, after Ruth’s emergence, he knows that he is as supernatural monster immune to the bacteria in the other creatures’ eyes. The author manipulates the expectation of the audience by initially shaping the character as a hero and finally subverting the expectation of the horror genre - suggesting the main character is the monster. As Tony Magistrale and Michael A. Morrison states in their essay, Introduction to Dark Night’s Dreaming, “The horror monster sometimes embodies the worst

The novel, “Alas, Babylon” by Pat Frank is a classic about the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the beginning few chapters, the author sets the exposition and tells us about all the characters and their relationship among each other. It also talks about the protagonist, Randy Bragg getting to know that a bombing might take place. A little bit later, we are informed that the bombing that Randy’s brother, Mark warned about came true and the bomb was dropped early in the morning causing a huge devastation. The chapters after that, talks about how the small river town of Fort repose in central Florida miraculously got saved and how the citizens respond to the situation and adapt to it.

In my opinion, the movie I am Legend is a fantastic movie for many reasons being from plot, to characters, and to the producer. The plot was based on a 1954 horror book I am Legend by Richard Matheson. This story is what he is most well-known for and made him popular. Richard had many great works and those got him the chance to write sixteen episodes for the popular television show The Twilight Zone. This television show aired from 1959 to 1964 with five seasons and 156 episodes. Making the book into a movie shows that it was a good enough story to get to

The story of “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about a father's attempt to regain the custody of his daughter after a series of personal disasters. The two major characters in this story are Charlie, realistic father fighting for his daughter Honoria, and Marion, the unrealistic sister. Charlie's quest to win back Honoria, for example, is also his quest to prove to himself and those who know him that he is a new man. Only a year and half before, he was an unemployed, irresponsible alcoholic with poor taste in friends. He now presents himself to his sister's family and his former friends as a changed man, once again sober and employed, "a reformed sinner" with a new appreciation of personal character as "the eternally valuable element."

In By the Waters of Babylon by Vincent Benét, John, the protagonist, sets off on a journey to find the “Place of the Gods”–New York–in order to learn the truth about the mythological “gods” who experienced apocalypse. When John finally does arrive at the “Place of the Gods,” after being captivated by the grandeur of the “gods’” towering construction and opulent lifestyle, he experiences astral projection during which he has an epiphany. According to John, during his astral projection, his spirit is drawn out of his body, and he watches the destruction of the “Place of the Gods.” However, to his bewilderment, John realizes that the “gods” weren’t actual gods, but rather were just regular men who, due to their hauteur and unregulated assimilation