Babylon+OPE+Christine


 * Heading**: Christine Kim E Block
 * Question**: How do you think the environment in "By the Waters of Babylon" came to be?
 * Title**: A Grave Mistake


 * The environment in "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Benet was the result of a nuclear bomb which stripped the world of its advanced technology and forced people to lead primitive lives.** In the story, John, the protagonist, sets out on a journey to the Place of the Gods, where he is strictly forbidden. Most of his people are illiterate, his father is a priest, and he carries an arrow on his journey, which gives readers the idea that the story takes place in the past. However, as the story progresses and John finds out that the Place of the Gods is actually New York and the Gods are men, readers begin to realize that the story actually takes place in the future and that something has forced John's civilization to degenerate into primitive tribes. "...wonderful and broken-broken in time of the Great Burning when the fire fell out of the sky." Readers can infer from this that there was a time of the Great Burning in the past where everything was destroyed; it probably destroyed John's civilization as well. The quote also mentions fire falling out of the sky, which all points toward a devastating nuclear bomb in the past. Moreover, towards the end of the story, New York was also destroyed by a nuclear bomb and became a "Dead Place." Therefore, readers can conclude that the same thing happened to John's civilization, but with one crucial difference: New York will not degenerate into a primitive society, because they will rebuild.