By the Waters of Babylon

were here before us. We must build again." They will learn the ways of the old

The air is rancid and smokey, causing a haze to form over the sun. The distant skyline is in rubble, as if an energetic toddler knocked them to the ground like building blocks. The city looked bland and grim without the bustle of people and the soft glow of the street lights. This is what the future holds, damned by society and its misuse. In “By the Waters of Babylon”, the story is set in a distant future near New York City. After a major disaster wiped out most of the civilization, a tribe started over from scratch. Jon, a priest in training, sets off on a journey east to investigate his dreams and to gain knowledge. In “Harrison Bergeron”, the story is set in a future where everyone must be equal, using handicaps to limit above average people and their abilities. George and Hazel Bergeron, the parents of Harrison, watch as he publicly defies the government and shows what it means to be free. In both, “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., we see a twisted and dire future. The events that take place heed as warnings or lessons about the dangers of technology and how too much of one thing, such as equality or knowledge, can set society back.

Imagine going through life learning and following what is believed to be the true , just to find out that it is a lie. In the story “ By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet the narrator, John is on a quest to find more knowledge, however he ends up discovering unexpected truths on his journey that affects his lifelong beliefs. The story leads the reader to an interesting question: what is the relationship between knowledge and truth? Knowledge is the education or information that is gained about a subject, idea, or experience. Gaining knowledge is often helpful and rewarding to a person, however the information or facts that is received is not always the truth.

Which would you value more-knowledge, or truth? Stephen Vincent Benét explores this question in his short story “By the Waters of Babylon”. However, Benét doesn’t answer this question exactly, instead “By the Waters of Babylon” focuses more on a singular theme that knowledge and truth are intertwined. Benét brings the reader into a post-apocalyptic world where humans have resorted to a more primitive state after the “Great Burning”(310). Now the only humans left with any knowledge are the Priests, and John happens to be the son of one. John has been exposed to the only remaining knowledge that he’s been told his society has at that the time and now quest for more. This burning desire that John has to know more of

While begin in the sanctuary, Caesar along with the other apes are not treated very well. From the mistreatment, Caesar starts to make plans about how to escape. He would draw on the walls of his cage, and think of a route to break free. When the owners son takes his friends into the sanctuary, one boy went over to see Caesar, this gave the intelligent ape to steal the pocket knife that the boy had without him knowing. Caesar makes a tool that helps him to unlock his cage and free himself and the other apes. Caesar leads the

In the novel “In the heart of the Sea” Nathaniel Philbrick introduces the reader to Nantucket Island located in the east coast. He establishes the importance of the whaling industry in relation to the island. Philbrick does an incredible job of telling the story of 20 regular men doing their jobs whaling. They set sail on a renewed ship called the Essex. The Essex took a beating from a storm before it finally met its match an angered sperm whale. The whale rammed the ship to the point beyond repair. It forced the whalers to put what they can on to the smaller whaler boats. Surviving at sea with limited resources the sailed until they were completely out of everything. The men resorted to the ultimate

On the way, he comes across the Patriarch Subodhi and his disciples. Although Monkey gives the Patriarch a hard time, he eventually recites a poem for Monkey avoiding for the Three Calamities. The Patriarch recites a secret formula that will enable Monkey to undergo seventy-two bodily transformations, while granting him with other talents, like the ability to soar through clouds at high speeds. While in Heaven, Monkey demands to be called Great Sage of Heaven. In order to gain immortality, he steals and eats from the Immortal Peach Garden and drinks elixir. Consequently, Monkey’s punishment is to be put to death in the alchemical crucible. As a result, the fire makes him stronger and indestructible. For example, Monkey uses his powers to rob, deceive, and battle monstrous

Both stories have serious warnings about what could happen to us in the future. In “By the Waters of Babylon” the warning is if we are not careful with the technology we have, we could destroy the entire planet and we would have to restart. The import warning from “Harrison Bergeron” is that if we had handicaps on how talented people could be, we would all just be average. This is a very important message, if everyone was the same we would be way behind with technology and basically everything else we have today. Both messages from the stories are similar in the sense of technology is every dangerous and in the future it will just become more and more advanced.

In one of his examples he speaks of a two “cages” (Twain). One filled with assorted “animals” the other with different men from different religions and locations (Twain). He hopes to prove how animals very quickly learned the most basic survival technique to cohabitate where the man did not. He lacks logos, as the man is an intellectual species and has evolved, surpassing other animals. The animals do not wear clothes, nor do they choose how they present themselves and what

Planet of the Apes takes the world as we know it and turns it upside down and in so doing questions almost every belief and value system of mankind. Written and produced at a time when America and much of the world was in the midst of a cultural change and people were questioning and protesting everything the screenwriters take make this film a satirical and thought provoking commentary on the big questions of the era. The Vietnam War, the struggle for equal treatment of African Americans and a general mindset of questioning religion and traditional values were the things that made up the American culture of the nineteen sixties. The film grapples with and makes ant attempt to address most of the issues of the period in which it was written. Three thousand years into the future man has devolved into a non-speaking primitive being while apes have evolved into intellectual beings capable of rational thought and speech. Taylor, the captain of the spaceship and tragic hero, speaks his last words before hibernating his way into the distant future, he states that he is leaving the twentieth century and asks a question, “Tell me, though, does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother ... keep his neighbor's children starving?” Taylor, a cynic and skeptic, sees man as violent and destructive. When he arrives in the future to a world where apes are supreme the antagonist of the film, Dr.

When drastic times occur and sweep one of everything they own, do they have a plan of action? Will they be prepared for a life without power, resources, and stability? Many times when people are faced with this situation they find themselves unprepared and unable to live in such conditions. They lose the connections with the world, the water they drink is likely to get contaminated, and the scarcity of goods is a threat to themselves and anyone left alive. Everywhere around them there is death and destruction leaving them isolated in their own dystopia. Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon illustrates a nuclear bomb simulation. In such a way, he gives the readers a taste of isolation and survival needs when facing such drastic times.

I think that these two stories represent the inner struggle that we all have in our endeavors to achieve perfection, and hide our own faults from the world. These efforts will eventually drag some of to our ends.

The book Silencing The Past is about how people “silence” the past through selective memories to benefit us in the present. We pick out certain events and either dramatize them or play them down to the point of no importance. This paper is about both our played up dramas and our forgotten realities.

The point of view each story is told from is a key factor to the unfolding of the events. Had they been told by an outside party rather than first hand from the men who committed the crimes, the depth of their insanity may not have been revealed. Recounted with a harsh callousness, Montresor never pauses or hesitates in his retelling. He speaks with an unnerving smoothness as if he were speaking of something far more innocuous than murder. Just the same, he would allow for no distraction from his plan. His cool manner lends itself to an eerie glimpse of his personality. No real regret is ascertainable, save for the very end when the Montresor tells us that his. The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, however, confesses his crime with an edgy nervousness. His story is choppy and disruptive. His madness has a stronger sense of urgency. His remorse for the loss of the old man can be

In the opening scene, a mysterious black monolith is bestowed upon the prehistoric apes. It appears in the cool desert dawn as the sun rises with blinding light. Prior to the rising of the monolith, the apes lived in a very peaceful manner. Once, the apes reached in