"By the Waters of Babylon"
is a post-apocalyptic short story by 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 in The Pocket Book of Science Fiction
, [2]
John tells the tale of his exploration of the forbidden "Place of the Gods" in a world that has nearly forgotten the existence of 20th century civilization. John is the son of a priest of a tribe of hunters, heirs to a global catastrophe, whose curiosity takes him on a journey of discovery and search for truth about his civilized ancestors.
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BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON TICKETS
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Plot summary
Set in a future following the destruction of industrial civilization, the story is narrated by a young man
[3] named John who is the son of a
priest. The priests of John’s people are inquisitive "scientists" associated with the divine. They are the only ones who can handle
metal collected from the homes (called the "Dead Places") of long-dead people whom they believe to be
gods. The plot follows John’s self-assigned mission to get to the Place of the Gods. His father allows him to go on a spiritual journey, but does not know he is going to this forbidden place.
John takes a journey through the forest for eight days, and crosses the river Ou-dis-sun. Once John gets to the Place of the Gods, he feels the energy and magic there. He sees a statue of a "god" — in point of fact, a human — that says "ASHING" on its base. He also sees a building marked "UBTREAS". After being chased by dogs and sleeping in someone's apartment, John sees a dead god. Upon viewing the visage, he has an epiphany that the gods were simply humans whose power overwhelmed good judgment. After John returns to his tribe, he speaks of the places "newyork" and "Biltmore". His father tells him not to, for sometimes too much truth is a bad thing, that it must be told little by little. The story ends with John stating his conviction that, once he becomes the head priest, "We must build again."
References made
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#ifexist:Category:Cleanup from May 2009
- "The Great Burning" refers to the day a bomb was detonated in New York City. [4]
- The "great river" "Ou-dis-sun" is the Hudson River.
[East River instead.]
Analysis
Benét wrote the story in response to the April 25, 1937
bombing of Guernica, in which
Fascist military forces destroyed the majority of the
Basque town of
Guernica during the
Spanish Civil War.
[5]
The title quotes
Psalm 137. The psalm tells of the Israelites's great sorrow over the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem and their enslavement in the land of Babylon.
UBTREAS is part of SUBTREASURY, the statue of the God ASHING is part of WASHINGTON. The Bitter Waters that John speaks of is the Atlantic Ocean, because it is salty and bitter.
He also goes to the great Gary Dead Place and learns that the ground does not burn.
Additionally, the mysterious bronze door with no handles is an elevator.
Related Edgar Pangborn story
{{#ifexist:Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from May 2009
Edgar Pangborn's story
The Music Master of Babylon
(1954) is clearly influenced by Benét's, written from the point of view of a former famous pianist living alone in the ruins of a devastated New York - similar though not identical to the one in Benét's story. After decades of total loneliness he encounters two exploring young people who come into the ruined city, and finds out about a new culture with its new religion which has arisen in the world (which is, however, far less sympathtic than one practiced in Benét's depiction of the future, and would become the basis of an opressive church in Pangborn's later "
Davy").
It is also widely believed that this story inspired
Ayn Rand's novella
Anthem
.
See also
- Anthem (novella)
- List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
- the title is a reference to Psalm 137 in the Bible.
- Rivers of Babylon (disambiguation)
Notes
References
- The term ''post-apocalyptic'' paraphrases Izzo.[1]
Date of publication is from BENÉT, STEPHEN VINCENT in Miscellaneous Story Anthologies
Benét changed the title when selecting works for ''Thirteen O'Clock''. (Fenton, 1958) - Book Information: Pocket Book of Science Fiction, the. Donald A. Wollheim, ed. (1943). Steven Jeffery / IBList.com, 2007
- Wagar, p. 163, who also calls him a "young savage" (p. 25). Macdonald, p. 267-268, which also calls him a "young brave". In the play adaptation, he appears as a young man and, in a non-speaking part, as a boy. (Duffield, 1971)
- Macdonald, p. 267-268.
- Source is Izzo, who also notes that Benét wrote other stories and poems in response to the threat of Fascism in the 1930s.