By The Waters Of Babylon By John Benet Analysis

          In the story, “by the waters of babylon”, the character John is a protagonist. He is the son of a priest and wants john to become a priest too. The reason  that the character  John is a protagonist because his thoughts and emotions are expressed throughout the story. In the story the author states, “so i learned the ways of those houses-and if i saw bones, i was no longer afraid.”

Rule of law is an important value in western civilization that was first emphasized by the early Hebrews. The Duxbury Middle School Handbook states that laws for the students. For example, one of the rules is that you have to turn your phone off during school hours. This evidence proves that Rule of law is an important value in western civilization because if you don’t turn

The story “By The Water Of Babylon”, written by Stephen Vincent Benet, has a plethora of aspects of literary elements that depict the story. The following analyzes the story using the seven elements of fiction.

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

Oxford Dictionaries defines the word responsibility as “The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone” (1). From a young age, every person must accept responsibility for decisions that he or she makes. As situations arise that must be dealt with, people have a duty to deal with those situations. In many ways, the act of living itself is an act of ultimate responsibility. In Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel, All the King’s Men, the central characters of the novel all have to deal with the consequences of their actions, although many of the characters try to avoid this solemn duty of life. Through analyzing the actions and inactions of the central characters, many important lessons on responsibility can be derived from the novel.

“By the Waters of Babylon” is a short story written by Stephen Vincent Benét. The story involves a son of a priest named John going east to explore a ruined city which is known as the “Place of the Gods.” As the name implies, the city was believed to have been inhabited by gods. As John explores the city, he realizes that the gods were not actually deities; they were humans who were killed in a calamity that John refers to as the “Great Burning.” It is implied in the story that the gods were ultimately responsible for their own destruction. Many literary elements are present in “By the Waters of Babylon,” but arguably the most important element is theme. The theme of the story gives meaning to the story as a whole. The theme of this story is that knowledge can be dangerous if consumed too quickly. Benét presents this idea of knowledge being dangerous several times in the story—notably the at the end of the story, during John’s interactions with his father, and during John’s exploration of the Place of the Gods.

The contrast of the two settings in ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ helps to reveals the story’s purpose. John’s home is less advanced than the Gods. While John was on his quest to receive purification, he goes to the Place of the Gods. With in one of the houses he finds, “there was a washing place but no water…” (Benét 64).

In the story F. Scotts Fitzgerald dubbed, "Babylon Revisited" a story about a man named Charlie Wales who goes on a quest to go to Paris and bring back his daughter, Honoria, back home to live with him instead of his sister and brother-in-law. Charlie was a man who had a drinking problem when him and his wife were still together even when they had Honoria. Eventually, Charlie 's bad temperment led him to lock his wife out of his house which indirectly led to her untimely death and Honoria being taken away from him and put into the care of his sister/brother-in-law in Paris. Charlie tries to convince his brother and sister-in-law, Lincoln and Marion, to release Honoria into his custody to return back home in Prague. Charlie eventually convinces the both of them to give him back Honoria, but in the end after reflecting on the things that Charlie has done in the past and is current state the couple change their mind and tell him to first completely fix his drinking problem. Before diving into the analysis, a little background context for this time era is neccessary before going any further. This story occurs towards the end of the Great Depression where Charlie returns to Paris from a sanitarium because of his alcholism problem. The Great Depression was a time where the stock market crashed in 1929 and as a result, Charlie 's money crashed along with it which could have been the cause of his severe alcholism. Now that Charlie has returned to Paris though after a few years, he

How would you feel if you had been deluded your entire life? In the story “By the Waters of Babylon,” the narrator, John, is going on a quest to learn about the unknown. John is the son of a priest and he wishes to become a priest himself. There is a place called the Dead Places where it is forbidden to go unless you are a priest or the son of a priest. To fulfil his wish of becoming a priest, John has to go on a journey. “It is forbidden to travel east. It is forbidden to cross the river. It is forbidden to go to the Place of the Gods. All these things are forbidden” (Benet 312). The Place of Gods has never been scrutinized by anyone in his village because it is forbidden to do so. On his journey, John travels to the Place of Gods and reveals its’ truth. The knowledge John and his people have is wrong. The narrator’s journey teaches him, everything he is told does not have to be true. Knowledge can be deceitful, but the truth will always be factual.

Knowledge can provide an individual with a lot of power. Knowledge has been used as a form of power and control throughout the ages, rulers and politicians using it to control and guide their people. This is what is happening in Stephen Vincent Benet’s post-apocalyptic story, By the Waters of Babylon. In this short story the priest are the ones who have power over the people, because they possess more knowledge than the others in their society. We follow a priest named John, who has gone on a journey and finds the ruins of New York City, and learns the truth about the so called “gods” that resided there. Throughout the story John is enlightened, at first not knowing much about the world and the downfall of the human race. By the end of the story, John is a changed man. He has discovered what truly

The pictures in the collage represent parts of the story, By the Waters of Babylon. This story is about a young man, John, a son of a priest. He goes on a journey east to The Place of the Gods, though it is forbidden. John believes it is his duty to explore and uncover the truth about this forbidden land. When John returns from his journey he wants to spread the truth, but his father warns him, “If you eat too much truth at once, you may die from the truth.”

Hammurabi’s Code shaped ancient civilization into a conformist society. With laws and punishments for breaking those laws posted for all to see, citizens were now expected to abide by certain rules that were literally “set in stone”. The Code shows mankind’s development from a vigilante type justice, where retaliation may be in one’s hands as they see it, to actual rules and specific repercussions enforced by a governmental body.

Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Survival is one’s continuation of living life after endeavoring difficult circumstances. In order to survive, selfishness is required. Selfishness is the quality of being predominantly concerned with oneself, as opposed to the well-being of others.

Law is one of the most basic institutions and one of the most necessary for a society to be upheld. They implement rights and obligations, and set penalties and consequences for those who break them (AllHistories). The first set of laws date back to Ancient Mesopotamia, or Babylon, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates River also identified as modern day Iraq. The sixth Babylonian king Hammurabi ruled from 1792 to 1750 B.C (B for Babylon). He was universally known for his establishment of the wall code, otherwise known as the Code of Hammurabi. Inscribed on steel, it is known to be the oldest and longest set of laws in history. It makes up of a fascinating 282 set of laws (Horne). This is the first time historians see the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Written laws were not seen in pervious civilizations to Babylon. Hammurabi was the first to believe in just consequences. He says the purpose of the code is “to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land…so the strong should not harm the weak” (Thompson). The laws cover a vast portion of Babylonian’s daily lives. There are laws that discuss taxes and trade, to marriage and divorce, and even theft and murder (Horne). Similar laws are enforced in the 21st century. Although the consequences of the Hammurabi Code are known to be harsh and inhumane, the basic concepts of the laws are implemented in today’s justice system. The Code of Hammurabi regulates women’s rights and family, murder and

Babylonian civilization is considered as one of the most important civilizations in the ancient world. The Babylonians took and developed everything after the Sumerians civilization especially in the spiritual realm and in the field of building an integrated civilization. The earlier civilizations had big role in the Babylonians civilization period when Babylonians took all the cuneiform writing, mathematical and astronomical knowledge, in addition to that the method of building cities, dams and etc. they improved all of them. The development of knowledge continued by Babylonian where the Sumerians stop, and the Babylonian built an empire for themselves on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the southern part of Sumer (Iraq). "The first Amuriyahian family has ruled over Babylon in the period (1830- 1530 BC), when Babylon was a mini-states at the time." Then the greatest king of Babylonian Hammurabi appeared in the seventeenth century BC. He established a famous group of laws known by (Hammurabi code).Also he was the king who united this petty States and achieved an important architectural movement in the city of Babylon.