Summer Reading : Alas, Babylon

The narrative point of view used in the novel is the third person omniscient, like most of the stories we were told as children. Our narrator, the author, knows everything. She can zoom in and out on all the characters, jump from place to place, and even read the thoughts of the main characters. The Prologue tells us all:

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

In the story, “By The Waters Of Babylon,” written by Stephen Vincent Benet, a great change occurred from centuries before John’s society. Even though this change happened long before John’s society came about, it still affected the way his society’s culture was. This story expressed great cultural adjustments throughout time. When the Great Burning happened, everything was destroyed and most knowledge was lost along with the city. This caused everything to change when it came time to rebuild the society. Culture changes over time due to the idea that through everyday that passes, some form of knowledge, somewhere, is lost or gained, and that causes a dramatic change as the years keep going.

Five major characters from the book are the Sphere, Monarch of Lineland, Monarch of Pointland, A Square’s grandson, and A Square. The main character from the book is A Square, the narrator. A Square visites three places in which he meets some of the main characters.

One morning in the town of Fort Repose, Florida Randy Bragg gets a telegram from his brother Mark. He asks Randy to meet at an air force base at noon, concluding his message with alas Babylon. Alas Babylon means something is wrong. Arriving at noon, Randy finds the Orlando Air Force base empty, soon after Mark arrives and leads Randy into a back room. He tells him that the Russians are trying to take over the Mediterranean, and that they are willing to start a nuclear war. Randy makes his way to the supermarket, where he stocks up on food, soon after his girlfriend visits him. Randy begins to warn her when the local doctor comes to ask her a question, so Randy also tells the doctor what’s happening. Randy goes to his girlfriend’s house to tell her parents, but they don’t like him so they think he is lying.

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.

2. Which character was the most interesting to you? What was the character’s overall objective or goal? How did the character go about achieving this goal?

First off, there was no main character in the book. The book never once had a main character. It talked about many different people but never once focused on one certain person. In the movie though every little thing was focused around one person. He was the main character through the whole movie, every thing happened in the movie because he came to this small town.

The Babylonian Kingdom (about 3500 years BC - in 729 BC) in Mesopotamia, roughly in the territory of the Republic of Iraq today. About 5000 years ago, people here to build the country by eighteenth Century BC, here the ancient kingdom of Babylon. The ancient Babylon, also known as mesopotamia. Is the civilization that developed in the Mesopotamia plain between Tigris and Euphrates rivers(Benjamin R. Foster and Karen Polinger Foster, 2009).

The art of survival is not something that just anyone can master. The art of survival requires a person to possess many qualities, and in the book, Alas, Babylon the author Pat Frank shows his readers a few of the characteristics or qualities that may be important for a person to have in order to survive. “The strong survive. The frail die,” (176) writes Frank as he had recognized that survival simply is not for everyone. In Alas, Babylon, and few qualities that people had to possess in order to survive included: strong leadership skills, the reality of what truly matters in a time of crisis, the ability to protect themselves and the people that matter most, and the ability to distinguish right and wrong.

The protagonist plays three different roles in the story, which is divided into three distinct but essentially unrelated sections.

The Great American Novel must illustrates the greatest and deepest lengths of the people in America. The novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald titled Babylon Revisited and Other Stories published in 1960 by Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York. The time period of the story was after during and after the Great Crash with different stories of American people in the beginning of the 90s. Fitzgerald’s way of illustrating the American experience in the story gives his reader the hope of the American Dream and that this shows the lessons of ambition and disappointment of the characters in the stories.

At the beginning of ?Babylon Revisted? Charlie and Alix are talking. Their conversation is about Charlie asking Alix to pass along his brother-in-law?s address. After Charlie asks him to do that they just start to have another conversation. The narrator tells the audience that Charlie is a 35 year old handsome man. After that Charlie goes to eat dinner with Peter?s family. At diner Charlie talks about how great his fiances are. After dinner he goes to see a famous dancer and after that he goes home.

In ?Babylon Revisited? the location of the story is in Paris, France. The time of the story is during the Jazz Age, but Fitzgerald portrays this world as sober and full of regret and mistakes. When people were lonely and angry they would go out onto the streets and wonder to clear their heads. Meanwhile as Fitzgerald talked about the outdoors he varies the indoors along with it. As he talks about indoors he is comparing it to Marion and Lincoln Peter's house where it is describe as a safe place.