Reading Comprehension Questions for by the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet
By Stephen Vincent Ben�t (1898-1843)
A Report Guide
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Written report Guide Prepared past Michael J. Cummings ... � 2010
Blazon of Work and Publication Yr
....... "Past the Waters of Babylon" is a short story centering on a boyfriend from a post-apocalyptic gild who goes forth from his village to learn and explore. The narrative has elements of the science-fiction, chance, and coming-of-age genres. The Saturday Evening Post published the story in the outcome of July 31, 1937. The Pocketbook of Science Fiction published it in 1943.
Setting and Background
....... The action takes place in the Eastern United states many generations later on a war desolated civilization and left cities in ruins. Some descendants of the few survivors of the war live in a tribe in the countryside many miles westward of the Hudson River (which the chief character refers to equally the Ou-dis-on). They are called Colina People. The men use bows and arrows to hunt, and the women spin wool to make fabrics. Ane fellow member of the tribe travels to a forbidden zone (New York Metropolis) and explores the ruins.
Characters
John: Son of a tribal priest (similar to a shaman or witch doctor) in a post-apocalyptic social club. John also becomes a priest.
John's Father: Priest who conducts the anniversary initiating his son into the tribal priesthood.
John'south Brothers: Hunters.
Forest People: Ignorant rivals of the more avant-garde society in which John lives. John says he has fought against the Forest People.
Point of View and Narrative Style
....... John tells the story in first-person point of view, using I, nosotros, and other first-person pronouns. He uses simple words, for he has learned only the rudiments of the English language from erstwhile books that he has establish. Consequently, the narrative is unproblematic and easy to understand.
Conflict
....... The main character, John, struggles against his ain fears (internal conflict) and against real or imagined exterior threats (external disharmonize), such every bit a pack of wild dogs and the Hudson River (which almost sweeps him abroad).
Plot Summary
....... Merely a priest or his son may enter Expressionless Places, says the narrator of the story, John. And no i may cross the river far off in the eastward to see the remains of the Place of the Gods, which the Dandy Burning reduced to ashes. Demons and spirits live there now.
....... A priest or his son may enter Dead Places for one purpose only: to look for metal. If either finds metallic, he and the metal must undergo purification.
....... John, the son of a priest, has entered Expressionless Places with his father. He recalls a time when he stood at the door of a dead-firm, afraid, while his male parent searched amidst the bones of men for metal. When he found a slice of metallic, he handed it to his son.
....... �I took it and did not die," John says. �So he knew that I was truly his son and would exist a priest in my time. That was when I was very immature."
....... From and so on, John's brothers showed him new respect, giving him the finest piece of meat and the warmest place at the fire.
....... In time, John goes solitary to the houses in the Dead Places and learns chants, spells, and other secrets, such as how to staunch the blood from a wound. He too learns to read the old books�stories of the gods and the old ways�and fifty-fifty to write in the mode of these books. He enjoys this activity and points out, �We are not ignorant like the Forest People�our women spin wool on the wheel, our priests wearable a white robe."
....... When the time comes for John to go a priest, he undergoes a purification rite in which "my body hurt but my spirit was a cool stone." His begetter tells him to look into the fire and report what he sees in his dreams. John says he sees �a river, and, beyond information technology, a great Expressionless Place and in it the gods walking." When his father asks him to describe what the gods are wearing, he does so. His begetter says it is a �stiff dream" that �may eat you lot up." He then makes his son promise not to travel to the east and cross the slap-up river to visit the Identify of the Gods. Afterward, his father says, �Now go on your journey."
....... With a bow and three arrows for protection, he leaves the hamlet, fasting and praying. At dawn the next 24-hour interval, he looks for a sign and sees an eagle flight due east. Considering such a sign is sometimes the work of evil spirits, he remains where he is�on a apartment rock, fasting, while awaiting another sign. Every bit the dominicus goes down, he sees four deer also traveling east. 1 is a white fawn. He follows the animals. Suddenly, a panther leaps upon the fawn. The narrator shoots an arrow through the panther's eye and into his brain. At nightfall, the narrator builds a burn and eats roasted meat.
....... The adjacent day, the narrator continues his journey toward the eastern zone even though the law forbids him to become there. From John's village, it takes about viii days to reach the zone, the site of the Place of the Gods. Along the way, he passes many Expressionless Places. While camping most a Expressionless Identify, he enters a expressionless-business firm and finds a knife, rusty but useful.
....... On the 8th twenty-four hour period of his journeying, the narrator arrives at the top of a cliff on the edge of a forest. Below is a long, wide, sacred river chosen Ou-dis-dominicus. No one else in his tribe, not even his male parent, had always seen it. Looking to the south, he sees the Place of the Gods. Believing that they might come across him, he drops back into the wood. During the dark, the urge to cross the river to visit the Identify of the Gods eats at him.
....... In the forenoon, a desire to see the Place of the Gods overwhelms John. He must satisfy that desire, he decides, fifty-fifty though he will die if he does so.
....... �[I]f I did not get, I could never exist at peace with my spirit once more," he reasons. �It is better to lose i's life than one'south spirit, if one is a priest and the son of a priest."
....... After edifice a raft, he recites words for the dead and paints himself for death, so sings a vocal of death:
....... I am John, son of John. My people are the Loma People. They are the men........ On the river, he is agape. The strong electric current grips his raft, and evil spirits seem to hover most him. His magic is useless. He feels very alone. He can see what were once god-roads that crossed the river. Only they broke and collapsed during the Great Burning, when burn roughshod from the sky. When the river begins to carry him toward the Bitter H2o of the legends, John asserts himself: �I am a priest and the son of a priest!" He believes the gods hear him; suddenly gains control of the boat, using his pole to navigate to the Identify of the Gods.
....... I become into the Expressionless Places just I am non slain.
....... I take the metallic from the Dead Places just I am non blasted.
....... I travel upon the god-roads and am not afraid. E-yah! I have killed the panther, I have killed the fawn!
....... E-yah! I have come to the smashing river. No man has come up there before.
....... It is forbidden to go east, merely I take gone, forbidden to go along the keen river, but I am there.
....... Open your hearts, you lot spirits, and hear my song.
....... Now I go to the Place of the Gods, I shall not return.
....... My torso is painted for death and my limbs weak, but my centre is big equally I go to the Place of the Gods!"
....... Near the shore, his raft turns over and he swims the rest of the style, managing to take with him his bow, arrows and pocketknife. Once on land, he discovers that the ground does not burn, as the tales say, nor is the island �covered with fogs and enchantments." It is simply a bully Dead Place. In that location are old, cracked god-roads and ruins of the gods' towers.
....... He is expecting to hear �the wailings of spirits and the shrieks of demons," but at that place are no sounds. The dominicus is shining, grass is growing, and birds and butterflies are flight and flitting. Non all the towers had crumbled. Here and at that place, a belfry still stands. They are empty. He sees amidst the ruins letters carved into cleaved rock: UBTREAS. There is also �a shattered image of a man or a god . . . who wore his pilus tied back similar a adult female'southward." On a croaky stone he reads the god'southward proper noun: ASHING. John prays to ASHING, although he never heard of that god.
....... As John roams well-nigh, he does not notice any smell of man. Few are the copse in this place of stone. There are many pigeons in the towers. Either the gods favored them or they were kept for sacrifices. There are cats, too, and packs of wild dogs. Although John is hungry, he does not hunt. Instead, he looks for the food of the gods, contained in �enchanted boxes and jars." These take been establish from time to time in the Dead Places. In the ruins of a huge temple, he finds jars of fruit and bottles of drink, which �was stiff and made my head swim." Later on, he sleeps on a rock.
....... When he awakens, the sun is setting. He decides to head north toward a god-road. A dog follows. When he reaches the road, he notices that other dogs are backside the first one. He goes into a expressionless-house (Biltmore Hotel). Merely as the dogs attack, he enters a room and closes its heavy metallic door earlier the dogs reach it. He climbs many steps and opens a door into a chamber. Later on inbound it, he opens another door and enters a room with windows�still intact�overlooking the ruined metropolis. He sees soft chairs, floor coverings (carpets), pictures on walls (paintings), a bird made of hard dirt on a tabular array, books, and other writings
....... �The god who lived [here] must have been a wise god and full of knowledge," he thinks.
....... He notices a washing place without water and a device to cook in simply no place to put wood. In that location are no candles or lamps with wicks, just there are objects that resemble lamps.
....... �All these things were magic, merely I touched them and lived�the magic had gone out of them," he thinks.
....... However, he feels the presence of spirits around him.
....... After exploring other rooms, John returns to the room with the soft chairs and pictures on the walls. It is evening. When he sees a box of wood and a fireplace, he builds a burn down and goes to sleep in front of information technology. During the night, he awakens afterward the fire goes out. He believes he hears voices and whispers effectually him and feels the spirits �drawing my spirit out of my body every bit a fish is drawn on a line." He so sees his body in front end of the fire. He is not dreaming, he believes; everything he sees is real. When he looks out the windows, he does not encounter darkness but �circles and blurs of light"�calorie-free then vivid that �ten one thousand torches would not accept been the same." He hears a roaring sound (traffic).
....... �I knew that I was seeing the city as information technology had been when the gods were alive," he thinks.
....... He believes that he can see the sight but because his spirit is out of his body. If he had perceived it with his torso, he would have died. He sees countless gods. They are walking and riding in chariots. He also sees bridges with god-roads leading east and w.
....... �As I looked upon them and their magic, I felt similar a kid," he observes.
....... Then he beholds from his vantage signal the fate of the gods, occurring when they brand war against 1 some other. They utilise fire from the sky and poisonous mist. Information technology is the time of the Neat Burning. Towers fall. Only a few gods escape, every bit the legends betoken out. And so there is darkness, and �I wept."
....... When John wakes up in the morning time, he wonders why the Peachy Burning happened.
....... �It seemed to me information technology should not have happened, with all the magic they had."
....... He roams the building looking for evidence of the crusade of the Dandy Burning. In a room he had not previously entered, he finds a dead god seated in a chair. He has �wisdom in his face and great sadness." He had watched the devastation of his urban center, and then died. And so John realizes that he had been a man, not a god or a spirit. Afterwards, John no longer fears things and is able to fight off the dogs and later the forest people when he is on his manner dwelling house.
....... His male parent does not reproach him for entering the Place of the Gods but asks him tell of his experiences. John reports everything and and then wishes to tell his story to everyone in his tribe. But his father says he must present the truth a footling at a time.
....... Now, John says, �We brand a outset." Then he says,
And, when I am chief priest we shall go beyond the great river. We shall go to the Identify of the Gods�the place newyork�not 1 man merely a visitor. Nosotros shall wait for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others�the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses. Only they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I think the dead man's face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again.
Title Meaning
....... The championship alludes to the commencement poetry of Psalm 137 in the King James Bible or the start poetry of Psalm 136 in the Douay-Rheims Bible:
Past the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. (King James)This passage reports the sorrow the of the Jews subsequently the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon gained command of Jewish lands and began deporting Jews to Babylon in 597 BC. After Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC and destroyed most of the city and its temple, he deported more Jews to Babylon, the capital letter of Babylonia, between 586 and 581. In 538, the Persians conquered the Babylonians, so permitted the Jews to return to their homeland. Babylon was situated east of the Euphrates River, more than fifty miles south of present-day Baghdad, Iraq.
Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we saturday and wept: when nosotros remembered Sion. (Douay-Rheims)
....... In Ben�t'south story, the descendants of the survivors of the Smashing Called-for alive in exile, like the Jews at Babylon. But John says he and his people will i 24-hour interval return to the ruined cities, including New York, and begin anew.
Climax
.......The climax occurs when John has a vision revealing the Identify of the Gods (New York City) as information technology was but before, and during, the Great Burning.
Everywhere went the gods, on pes and in chariots�there were gods beyond number and counting and their chariots blocked the streets. They had turned night to mean solar day for their pleasure-they did non sleep with the sunday. The racket of their coming and going was the noise of the many waters. It was magic what they could do�it was magic what they did. . . . And then I saw their fate come up upon them and that was terrible by speech. It came upon them equally they walked the streets of their metropolis. I have been in the fights with the Wood People�I have seen men dice. Merely this was non like that. When gods state of war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and a mist that poisoned. It was the time of the Great Burning and the Devastation. They ran about like ants in the streets of their city�poor gods, poor gods! Then the towers began to fall. A few escaped�aye, a few. The legends tell it.Denouement
.......In the denouement (determination), John reveals what he has learned from his experiences in the Place of the Gods and what happened when he returned home. (See the last four paragraphs of the story.)
Themes
Avoiding Apocalypse
....... �By the Waters of Babylon" presents an unsaid warning that war will somewhen desolate civilization unless human beings learn to live with ane another without resorting to violence to resolve their differences.
Advancement Through Exploration
....... John understands that the only manner to better himself is to explore the world around him even though such exploration involves great risks. In a sense, he is like explorers of the past�seamen, scientists, philosophers, theologians, artists, and so on�who crossed physical or intellectual boundaries, often at the risk of their reputations or even their lives.
Obscurantism
....... The tribal lawgivers plant boundaries beyond which no one may go. They do non realize, as John does, that some boundaries must be crossed and some forbidden zones must be entered if there is to be learning and progress. In their desire to maintain the status quo and remain inside familiar boundaries, these lawgivers are obscurantists�persons who oppose enlightenment and man progress because they fear alter and contact with the unknown. They are comfortable with things every bit they are.
Coming of Historic period
....... On his travels, John builds his conviction, gains a better understanding of himself and his capabilities, and learns about the world around him.
Superstition
....... Superstition arises from ignorance. When a person cannot explicate an event or a status, he may attribute it to spirits or magic, equally John does until he learns the truth about the globe around him.
Rebirth
....... At the end of the story, John speaks of the rebirth of civilization as it was earlier the Great Called-for.
Value and Danger of Metal
....... In the first paragraph of the story, John says, "Information technology is forbidden to get to any of the Dead Places except to search for metallic and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must exist purified."
....... In the second paragraph, John says, "My father is a priest; I am the son of a priest. I have been in the Expressionless Places most the states, with my begetter�at first, I was afraid. When my male parent went into the house to search for the metal, I stood by the door and my heart felt small and weak."
....... In the third paragraph, he says, "Then my begetter came out with the metal�good, strong piece. He looked at me with both eyes but I had not run away. He gave me the metal to concur�I took information technology and did not die."
....... The members of the tribe probably employ pieces or sheets of metal to make shelters, containers, kitchen utensils, farm implements, so on. In some instances, the metal they salvage may already exist in the form of a useful detail, such as the pocketknife John found.
....... From what John says, some metal objects pose a danger, perchance because they are unexploded bombs or artillery projectiles. John implies this possibility in the third line of his expiry song: "I take the metal from the Dead Places but I am non blasted."
....... John does non explicate why "the metal must be purified." Perhaps unexploded weapons must be disarmed or otherwise neutralized; other objects might require removal of rust, oil, gasoline, or other contaminants or corrosives. Information technology is obvious, however, that author Ben�t was not suggesting that metallic was contaminated with radiations. When he wrote the story in 1937, the U.S. had not yet developed atomic weapons, which spread radioactive particles after they explode.
Glossary
ASHING: Letters engraved in a rock remnant from a statue of George Washington on Wall Street in New York Metropolis.
Bitter Water: Ocean water, described by John as bitter because of its common salt content.
fishhawk: Osprey, a black-and-white bird that dives for fish.
slap-up temple in the mid-metropolis : Grand Central Concluding (railroad final frequently referred to as Grand Primal Station).
Biltmore: Biltmore Hotel, which adjoins Grand Central Terminal. When John enters this "dead-house" he sees pictures on the walls in one part of the building. These are paintings that the Biltmore Hotel houses in its Grand Central Art Galleries, opened in 1922.
Lincoln: Reference Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United states, and to the Lincoln Tunnel, which connects Weehawken, New Jersey, with New York Metropolis.
Moses: Probably a reference to Robert Moses, who oversaw a construction of hundreds public facilities in New York City, including parks, playgrounds, tunnels, and highways. He also supervised completion of the Triborough Bridge (really three bridges), connection Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens.
Ou-dis-sun: Name for the Hudson River.
roof . . . painted like the sky at night with its stars: Ceiling of One thousand Cardinal Final.
UBTREAS: Letters engraved in a rock remnant from the The United States Subtreasury edifice on Wall Street in New York Urban center. A subtreasury is a regional depository financial institution that holds federal funds.
Study Questions and Writing Topics
- In what means is the story prophetic?
- Write an essay comparing and contrasting the plot and theme of "By the Waters of Babylon" with the plot and theme of The Planet of the Apes, an American picture show based on the novel La program�te des singes, by Pierre Boulle. (If you wish, you may compare and contrast the curt story with an English language translation of Boulle'southward novel.
- Write an essay focusing on the aftermath of a real-life Great Burning�the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the Second World War.
- In your opinion, how many years afterward the Great Called-for did John visit New York Urban center?
- Is "Past the Waters of Babylon" a story of optimism or pessimism?
Reading Comprehension Questions for by the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet
Source: https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides8/Babylon.html