Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
"By the Waters of Babylon" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét, first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods". [1] It was republished in 1943 The Pocket Book of Science Fiction, [2] and was adapted in 1971 into a one-act play by Brainerd Duffield. [3]
By the Waters of Babylon Summary & Analysis. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in By the Waters of Babylon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. In the story’s opening paragraph, the protagonist and first-person narrator, John, recounts the laws of his tribe.
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON. by Stephen Vincent Benét. The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest.
By the Waters of Babylon. “By the Waters of Babylon” is set in a post-apocalyptic, post-technological world where people hunt for their food with bows and arrows and their priests scavenge the “Dead Places” for metal. John, the protagonist and first-person narrator, belongs to the tribe of the Hill People and is the son of a priest.
By the Waters of Babylon, first published in 1937, is a prescient science fiction story set in an indeterminate, postapocalyptic era, not uncommon for this genre; this lack of detailed setting suggests an unstable physical and social environment.
“By the Waters of Babylon” is an exploration of human curiosity, cultural evolution, and the cyclical nature of civilizations. Stephen Vincent Benét masterfully intertwines a post-apocalyptic setting with biblical allegories, creating a narrative that resonates with timeless themes.
The best study guide to By the Waters of Babylon on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
Summary: “By the Waters of Babylon” Stephen Vincent Benét lived from 1898 to 1943. Much of his writing examines subjects from American history, including his highly acclaimed narrative poem John Brown’s Body. Benét won four Pulitzer Prizes, including one for “By the Waters of Babylon.”
(August 3, 1492.) 1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns. 2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff.
Stephen Vincent Benét’s post-apocalyptic short story “By the Waters of Babylon” was first published in 1937 in the Saturday Evening Post, under the title “The Place of the Gods.” In...