Analysis Of John Benet's By The Waters Of Babylon

“By the Waters of Babylon” is a story set in a post-apocalyptic world narrated by the son of a village priest named John. John learns from his father how to collect metal from the Dead Places and how to purify it so it can be used by his people. When he becomes comfortable doing this by himself, John decides that it is time for him to go on his journey. John dreams that he is destined to take a journey to the Place of the Gods, a trip forbidden by his people. After traveling for eight days, John crosses the great river, and arrives at the Place of the Gods, realizing that it wasn’t full of evil spirits and demons like he had originally been taught. One night, while he was sleeping, John dreamt about the Gods and how they lived in the city. When he wakes, John realizes that the Gods lived like the people in his village did, not like gods. The next day, John began his journey home. When he arrives home, John tells his father what he learned at the Place of the Gods, but is …show more content…
Originally writing love stories, Benet wanted to write stories out of his own ideas, not guidelines given to him. Benet said “We have our own folk-gods and giants and figures of earth in this country, I wanted to write something about them” (Fenton 19). In “By the Waters of Babylon”, Benet incorporates pieces from modern culture into the story to make it seem like a folk-myth or a legend. Benet used American past and fantasy to create a science fiction story that could be read like literature. In many points of Benet’s career, he had little to no money because he couldn’t write any short stories, but eventually wrote multiple books and collections of short stories and poems to solve his monetary problems. Benet struggled with writing short stories since he was a prize winning poet, and had only written poetry since he was a child, but learned to write and become successful as a short story