Babylon+OPE+Justin

Justin Ko 9F

Question : Looking at the ideas/concepts of the story, when was the story probably written and for what purposes?

Title : indifferent and unconcerned warning

Looking at the ideas and concepts of the story, I could guess that this story, By the Waters of Babylon, by Stephen Vincent Benét was probably written early in the 20th century to warn the future people who are getting enormous amount of knowledge in short time that they can’t even control in their own ability. John travels to the city of the gods by himself and he finds out that they are not gods but men just like the people of John’s tribe. Eventually, he obtains great knowledge from his journey which develops the thoughts of both John and his townspeople. At the end of the story, John says “Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast.” First, it means future by saying ‘old days,’ and John conveys that people learn so many things at once, and they learn new things again even though they are not used to what they had learned first. That could somewhat cause the destruction of human civilization. John also said “We must build again” at last, and this shows that there are not only negative effects but also some positive effects. John is trying to build new civilization because now it is too bad-influenced. By this, the author is trying to say that even though our civilization is ruined, later we can make up again. The author’s guess about these days is somewhat correct, and we should rely less on technology because we humans can think unlike machines.